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THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 


ip^y^' 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NBW  YORK  •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO    •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •  BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


The 

Aftermath  of  Battle 

WITH  THE  RED  CROSS  IN  FRANCE 


BY 
EDWARD  D.  TOLAND 

WITH  A  PREFACE  BY 
OWEN  WISTER 


Nm  fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1916 

AU  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  February,  igi6. 


Berwick  &  Smith  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

MOST  of  these  pages  following  are, 
like  the  photographs  which  go  with 
them,  torn  fresh  and  hot,  so  to  speak,  from 
the  diary  of  a  young  American,  just  as  he 
jotted  them  down  day  by  day  in  the  war- 
hospitals  of  France. 

In  those  hospitals,  from  September,  19 14, 
into  February,  191 5,  with  other  young 
volunteers,  many  of  them  Americans  also, 
he  served  the  wounded  Germans  and  Allies. 
He  carried  them  upstairs  and  down,  or  in 
from  the  rain,  he  assisted  at  operations,  he 
held  basins,  he  gave  chloroform,  he  built  the 
kitchen  fire,  he  pumped  the  water,  he  was 
chauffeur,  forager,  commissariat,  he  helped 
in  what  ways  he  could,  as  he  was  ordered, 

V 

333774 


vi  PREFACE 

and  also  as  his  own  intelligence  prompted 
in  the  not  infrequent  absence  of  orders. 
He  saw  the  wounded  die,  he  saw  them  get 
well,  and  he  tells  about  them,  their  suffer- 
ing, their  courage,  their  patience.  He 
records  one  day,  among  other  incidents, 
that  "when  we  got  to  the  Hospital  we  cut 
the  clothes  off  most  of  the  men  and  I  tied 
them  up  for  storage.  While  I  was  doing 
this  for  one  of  the  Scots  (of  the  Black 
Watch)  who  had  a  bullet  through  his 
chest  ...  he  said,  *Will  ye  let  me  have  a 
look  at  those  kilts?'  I  gave  him  the  kilts 
and  continued  tying  up  his  clothes.  When 
I  looked  up  he  was  folding  them  with  his 
one  arm,  as  carefully  as  a  woman  tucking  her 
baby  to  sleep;  'see  that  they're  not  mussed, 
will  ye?'  he  said.  .  .  ." 

In  the  doings  caught  alive  and  set  down 
here,  a  glimpse  of  war  as  it  is,  is  given  us: 


PREFACE  vii 

aeroplanes  sail  by,  shells  explode  and  tear 
the  earth,  loaded  trains  arrive  smelling  of 
dead  flesh;  while,  round  the  wounded  and 
the  walls  which  shelter  them,  life  goes  on 
with  its  birthdays  and  Christmas  dinners, 
its  diplomats,  magnates,  spectators  passing 
on  and  off  the  scene  along  with  doctors, 
surgeons,  and  trained  nurses. 

From  this  short  authentic  document  a 
long  string  of  morals  and  conclusions  is  to 
be  drawn,  and  these,  saving  two  remarks 
only,  shall  be  left  to  the  reflecting  reader. 

First.  After  the  brief  introduction  of  the 
diary,  wherein  the  writer  narrates  his 
voyage  in  the  steerage  to  Liverpool,  one 
is  plunged  instantly  into  the  French  chaos. 
As  page  succeeds  page,  written  without 
art,  yet  with  the  effect  of  high  art,  with 
the  effect  (for  example)  of  De  Foe's  ac- 
count of  the  Plague,  the  reader  ceases  to 


viii  PREFACE 

be  looking  at  a  picture,  he  is  himself  in 
the  picture,  its  terrific  realities  surround 
him  as  if  he  were  walking  among  them. 
Many  such  pages,  most  of  them  still  un- 
published, have  come  from  soldiers  and 
other  participants  in  the  Great  Convulsion. 
It  is  one  of  the  several  marked  phenom- 
ena of  the  Great  Convulsion  that  it  causes 
people  who  are  not  trained  writers  to  pro- 
duce pages  which  have  the  quality  of  the 
very  greatest  literature — of  Shakespeare, 
of  the  Greek  Tragedies,  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. I  have  seen  some  fifty  letters  from 
an  American  boy  in  the  trenches  to  his 
parents.  Lately  I  heard  read  three  letters 
equally  intimate:  one  from  a  French  officer, 
telling  how  he  led  his  men  at  night  in  an 
assault  on  the  German  trenches;  one  from 
a  young  Englishman  telling  how  in  his 
aeroplane    he    chased    a    Zeppelin    through 


PREFACE  IX 

the  fog  by  night  out  over  the  North  Sea; 
and  one  from  an  American  lady  telling 
how  she  went  through  and  came  out  of 
the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  Not  one  of 
these  people  was  a  writer:  I  have  seen 
nothing  whatever  by  any  professional  writer 
on  the  war  that  so  touches  the  heights  and 
the  depths  of  emotion  as  did  these  private 
letters  through  their  elemental,  spontaneous 
simplicity.  They  seemed  written  not  so 
much  by  men  and  women  as  by  nature. 
This  is  one  of  the  things  which  the  Great 
Convulsion  does  to  the  human  soul;  if  any 
human  soul  comes  out  of  it,  lives  after  it 
unchanged  for  the  better — even  those  who 
walk  American  streets  in  safety  here,  they 
will  have  missed  the  greatest  spiritual  op- 
portunity that  will  ever  meet  them  in  this 
world. 

Second.    Throughout    the    pages    of    this 


X  PREFACE 

diary  occur  the  names  of  Americans  who 
have  wholly  or  in  part  dedicated  them- 
selves to  serving  their  fellow  man  in  the 
Great  Convulsion.  Whichever  of  them  win 
renown,  all  who  serve  faithfully  win  the 
spurs  of  moral  knighthood.  These  spurs 
they  wear  along  with  Dr.  Strong  and  those 
colleagues  of  his  who  rid  Servia  of  pesti- 
lence, or  Mr.  Hoover  who  has  been  a  sort 
of  godfather  to  Belgium,  and  with  many 
more.  And  this  host — for  a  host  it  is — of 
Americans  thus  dedicated  to  service  in  the 
Great  Convulsion,  helps  to  remove  the 
stain  which  was  cast  over  all  Americans 
when  we  were  invited  to  be  neutral  in  our 
opinions  while  Democracy  in  Europe  was 
being  strangled  to  death. 

Owen  Wister. 


CONTENTS 

PART  PAGE 

I.  Across  in  the  Steerage 3 

II.  Majestic    Hotel    Hospital,    Paris, 

September,  1914 19 

III.  Harjes  Ambulance  Corps  at  Ricque- 

BOURG 89 

IV.  Harjes  Ambulance  Corps  at  Mont- 

DiDiER 131 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Aftermath  of  Battle Frontispiece 

Facing  page 

Very  septic  head  case 26 

Wounded  Cameron  Highlander 34 

Another  wounded  Highlander 38 

Turco  with  bullet  in  his  chest 48 

Dressing  an  abdominal  case 62 

Operating  staff,  Majestic  Hotel  Hospital.  ...  70 

Our  first  convalescents  at  the  Majestic 78 

Our  chateau  at  Ricquebourg 94 

Dressing  wounded  Senegalis 108 

En  route  to  Montdidier 132 

The  author 140 

Refugees  from  Lassigny 146 

Members  of  the  French  Cabinet  visiting  us . .  154 

A  lesson  in  knitting 160 

Lieut.  Bufquin  on  the  road  to  recovery 162 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 


PART  I 


THE 
AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE 

WIEN  the  war  commenced  and  the 
banking  business  shut  down  tem- 
porarily, I  found  myself  with  nothing  to  do. 

In  a  short  time  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
go  to  Paris;  my  idea  being  simply  to  see 
the  excitement  and  the  French  people  in 
war-time. 

The  prospect  of  an  indeterminate  holiday 
appealed  to  me  strongly,  as  four  years  of 
engineering,  and  two  years  in  the  banking 
business,  had  given  me  but  little  time  to 
myself,  since  leaving  Princeton  in  1908. 

I  decided  to  cross  in  the  steerage.     The 


4        THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

idea  came  from  Bishop  Brent  of  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  who  a  year  previously  had 
given  me  a  description  of  a  trip  he  took 
in  the  steerage.  Accommodations  were 
quickly  arranged  for,  and  with  most  of 
Philadelphia's  visible  supply  of  French 
gold  strapped  to  my  legs,  and  wearing  my 
City  Troop  shoes  and  khaki  shirt,  I  boarded 
the  steerage  of  the  S.  S.  Laconia  in  New 
York,  August  19th,  1914. 

A  brief  description  of  the  steerage  may 
be  of  interest.  My  cabin  had  6  bunks  in 
it,  3  lowers  and  3  uppers.  The  ceiling  was 
6}/^  feet  high  and  the  room  measured 
about  9'  X  7'.  There  were  6  life  preservers, 
one  under  each  pillow,  6  hooks  on  the  wall, 
6  towels,  6  straw  mattresses  and  pillows, 
6  rough  blankets  and  that  was  absolutely 
all. 

This  describes  the  average  steerage  cabin 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE  5 

pretty  well.  They  are  put  wherever  space 
will  allow,  and  hold  from  2  passengers  up 
to  20  or  so. 

The  dining-room  contained  long  narrow 
tables,  bolted  to  the  floor,  covered  with 
oil-cloth  and  each  seating  from  6  to  10  on 
a  side.    The  meal  hours  were  as  follows: 

Breakfast 6  a.  m. 

Dinner Noon 

Supper 5  P.  M. 

All  the  inside  deck  of  the  steerage,  includ- 
ing the  dining-room,  halls  and  cabins,  is 
made  of  some  composition  that  is  water- 
proof and  is  drained  so  that  it  can  be 
cleaned  up  by  merely  turning  on  the  fire 
hose.  Everything  was  kept  quite  clean 
throughout  the  entire  trip.  There  were 
about  six  hundred  passengers  in  the  steerage, 
many  of  whom  were  going  back  to  join  the 
British  Army  or  Navy. 


6        THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

We  were  met  at  Sandy  Hook  by  a 
British  war-ship,  the  Essex,  which  escorted 
us  until  dark.  All  outside  lights  on  our 
ship  were  hidden,  so  each  night  on  deck 
was  passed  in  total  darkness.  The  second 
day  out  the  stacks  and  forward  part  of 
the  boat  were  painted  to  resemble  those  of 
a  Scandinavian  vessel. 

I  asked  some  of  the  stewards  about 
previous  voyages.  One  of  them  said, 
"You're  lucky  that  you  are  not  coming  in 
from  the  Mediterranean  with  2,200  of  them 
Wops  in  the  steerage!  Dirty!  It's  perfectly 
sickening!  Put  down  a  dish  of  bread  in 
front  of  them  and  they  will  all  fight  for 
it!  One  fellow  he'll  grab  nearly  all!  Thinks 
it  all  they  are  going  to  get  that  day." 

I  laughed  and  said  I  supposed  it  was 
pretty  bad. 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "Why,  they  don't  know 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE  7 

what  preserves  are.  They  put  the  bloom- 
ing marmalade  in  their  tea!  We  used  to 
give  them  pepper  and  salt  to  put  on  their 
prunes.  It  did  not  make  no  difference, 
though,  they'd  mug  it  all." 

August  22nd: 

Very  cold  this  morning  and  a  strong 
breeze  blowing.  Fifty  per  cent  of  the  steer- 
age are  sea-sick.  I  am  wearing  my  heaviest 
winter  clothes.  We  are  sailing  far  out  of 
the  usual  course.  Every  night  the  sun  has 
gone  down  at  right  angles  to  our  port 
beam,  so  we  are  heading  nearly  due  north. 

My  fellow  passengers  seem  to  get  sick 
very  easily.  The  stewards  tell  me  that 
when  they  have  a  boat  load  of  Italians, 
Poles,  etc.,  some  of  them  will  lie  on  the 
hatches  for  three  days  at  a  time  without 
moving. 


8        THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Calmer  this  evening  and  we  had  a  little 
impromptu  musicale  conducted  by  Tom,  the 
Irishman  who  plays  the  fiddle.  He  worked 
on  the  streets  laying  pavement  in  New 
York  City,  and  has  a  nice  face  and  a  huge 
mustache.  The  fingers  of  his  hands  are 
so  thick  and  calloused  I  don't  see  how  he 
can  play  a  fiddle,  but  he  does. 

Some  evenings  we  have  a  pretty  fair 
chorus,  consisting  mostly  of  the  stewards, 
who  know  all  the  Music  Hall  favorites, 
and  the  instrumental  accompaniment  is 
augmented  by  an  accordion  and  a  pair  of 
bones. 

A  young  girl  is  on  her  way  back  to  Eng- 
land. She  has  been  earning  her  living  by 
cooking.  She  said,  "This  is  the  way  I  look 
at  it.  You  earn  twice  as  much  in  America 
and  your  expenses  are  twice  as  much,  but 
your   savings   are   twice   as   much,   too.     I 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE  9 

could  never  have  supported  my  mother  and 
little  sister  by  doing  that  kind  of  work  in 
England." 

I   ask  everybody  innumerable  questions. 

There  is  a  great  variety  on  the  boat  and 
it  is  tremendously  interesting  to  observe 
the  people.  Instincts  are  at  their  nakedest 
in  this  class;  there  are  no  studied  poses. 
We  have  one  type  which  is  found  every- 
where; the  tough  athletic  hero  of  a  co- 
educational high  school  in  the  middle  west. 
I  met  him  in  the  lavatory,  before  breakfast, 
about  the  third  day  out,  when  it  was  quite 
crowded. 

"Hullo,"  he  said,  in  a  deep  loud  voice, 
"why,  I  haven't  seen  you  before!" 

"Well,"  I  replied,  "I  do  not  think  I 
have  seen  you  either." 

"Why,"  he  said  a  little  non-plussed, 
"I've  been  making  more  noise  and  kicking 


lo      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

up  more  rumpus  than  anyone  else  down 
here!" 

How  many  people  there  are,  who  want 
just  this  very  thing  thought  of  them,  but 
how  few  would  frankly  admit  it. 

Of  course,  I  had  both  seen  and  heard 
him,  but  I  couldn't  let  such  an  opening 
go  by.  "Really,"  I  replied,  "I  never  no- 
ticed you  at  all." 

Still  freezing  cold.  No  one  will  say  where 
we  are,  but  we  must  be  somewhere  near 
Greenland.  We  are  going  in  by  the  North 
of  Ireland  and  will  be  escorted  to  Liverpool 
by  some  war-ships. 

Approaching  Liverpool  we  went  at  a 
snail's  pace  and  simply  crawled  into  the 
harbor.  They  said  that  it  was  newly 
mined  and  that  we  could  not  use  our  screws 
without  danger. 

The   tipping   system   on   the   steerage   is 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE         ii 

simple.  A  soup  plate  is  passed  around  the 
table  at  the  last  meal.  The  average  con- 
tribution at  my  table  was  one  shilling  per 
capita.  My  trip  from  New  York  to  Liver- 
pool accordingly  stands  me  $35.25. 

General  confusion  and  excitement  in  land- 
ing and  getting  through  the  customs.  For 
people  who  know  nothing  whatever  about 
travelling,  it  is  amazing  how  well  they  man- 
age to  make  out. 

I  spent  the  night  in  Liverpool  and  on 
taking  a  walk  before  going  to  bed,  met 
Alec,  the  Scot,  from  Edmonton,  and  a 
half  dozen  of  his  chums,  in  the  station. 
They  were  taking  the  1.15  A.  M.  express 
North  and  suggested  investigating  some  of 
the  Ale  Houses  in  the  vicinity.  Alec  is  a 
nice  looking,  big,  powerful  fellow,  rather 
retiring  and  quiet.  He  is  to  join  the  Gordon 
Highlanders.    I  thought  I  noticed  a  sparkle 


12      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

in  his  eye  when  I  first  met  him,  and  as 
we  walked  down  the  street  arm  in  arm, 
that  he  seemed  more  loquacious  than  usual. 

He  soon  said,  "I  do  na  talk  much  except 
when  I  take  a  dram.  You  must  excuse 
me,  mate." 

I  slapped  him  on  the  back  and  told  him 
to  talk  all  he  wanted. 

We  sat  down  at  a  table  in  a  small  tavern 
where  Alec  had  another  dram  and  then 
made  a  speech  to  the  company  in  general, 
about  how  he  had  been  switched  around 
Chicago  by  the  railway  and  steamship 
agents;  swindled  by  Jew  money  changers 
and  clothing  venders;  stuck  by  the  hotels; 
misunderstood  on  account  of  his  accent, 
and  in  general  played  for  a  sucker.  His 
descriptions  were  so  funny;  were  given  in 
such  a  loud  voice  and  with  such  unique 
phraseology    and    Scotch    accent,    that    he 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE         13 

soon  had  nearly  the  entire  tavern  in  hys- 
terics. I  wish  I  could  repeat  it  all.  It  was 
as  good  as  anything  Harry  Lauder  ever 
turned  out. 

From  there  we  went  to  a  dingy  sort  of 
family  place  to  get  something  to  eat.  There 
were  a  dozen  stodgy  Liverpool  husbands 
and  wives  sitting  about  and  Alec  again 
took  the  floor,  giving  a  second  series  which 
was  just  as  funny  as  the  first.  There  we 
stayed  until  nearly  train  time  when  Alec 
ordered  the  boy  to  "bring  me  a  bottle  of 
the  best  Scotch  whiskey  ye've  got."  This 
I  managed  to  have  side-tracked,  or  Alec 
would  never  have  got  to  Glasgow  that  night. 
So  went  the  evening  and  I  have  seldom 
spent  a  better  one.  As  we  left  the  tavern 
Alec  and  Duncan  drew  me  aside.  I  had 
paid  the  check  at  the  last  place  (about 
three  shillings).    They  looked  very  serious. 


14      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

"YeVe  been  too  generous,  let's  divide  it 
up,"  said  Duncan.  "Yes,  mate,"  said 
Alec,  "it's  uncommon  good  of  ye,  but  we 
both  know  ye've  been  put  to  an  awful  ex- 
pense!!! 

The  time  for  parting  was  near  at  hand, 
and  at  i  A.  M.  we  stood  together  in  the 
street  for  the  last  time,  our  arms  around 
each  other's  shoulders,  and  sang  "Just  a 
Wee  Doech  and  Dorris  before  We  Gang 
Awa."  Then  we  separated,  never  to  meet 
again. 

Upon  arriving  in  London  I  was  informed 
that  it  was  impossible  to  cross  the  Channel, 
as  all  the  boats  had  been  requisitioned  for 
the  transport  of  troops.  I  was,  therefore, 
obliged  to  wait  until  September  I2th,  when 
the  first  passenger  boat  left  for  Havre. 
After  spending  14  hours  on  the  train  be- 
tween Havre  and  Paris,  I  arrived  there  at 


ACROSS  IN  THE  STEERAGE         15 

seven  In  the  morning,  feeling  somewhat 
used  up,  and  went  immediately  to  the 
Cooper-Hewitt  Hospital,  21  Avenue  de 
Bois  de  Boulogne. 

The  battle  of  the  Marne  had  just  ended 
some  thirty  miles  from  Paris  and  the  troops 
were  fighting  along  the  Aisne,  a  little  further 
east. 


PART  II 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS 

September^  igi4: 

PARIS  was  deserted.  Nearly  all  the 
stores  were  closed  and  the  windows 
boarded  up.  When  I  turned  into  the  Avenue 
de  rOpera  it  was  empty — one  cart  between 
the  Opera  and  the  Louvre,  and  not  a  soul 
on  the  sidewalks. 

Mrs.  F.,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Hos- 
pital, had  just  returned  from  Montereau, 
an  assembly  point  for  wounded,  and  said 
that  the  conditions  were  something  frightful. 
Hundreds  of  wounded  men  were  lying  on 
filthy  straw,  most  of  them  not  having  had 
their  wounds  looked  at  for  several  days, 
almost  all  the  wounds  septic  beyond  de- 
scription, dysentery,  gangrene  and  tetanus 
19 


20      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

prevalent  throughout;  no  bandages,  gauze, 
anaesthetics  or  capable  surgeons  and  one 
nurse  to  about  every  fifty  men.  She  said 
they  had  been  looking  at  compound  frac- 
tures with  nothing  but  a  candle.  Tells  me 
that  the  French  officials  in  Paris  do  not 
seem  to  want  wounded  men  brought  in 
here,  although  there  are  some  six  hundred 
beds  now  prepared  with  first-class  equip- 
ment and  staff  all  ready  and  waiting  for 
them;  the  reason  being  either  that  they 
are  afraid  the  possibility  of  a  siege  is  not 
over,  or  else  that  they  are  afraid  the  moral 
effect  on  the  French  public  will  be  bad. 

The  little  hospital  of  fifty  beds  of  which 
Mrs.  F.  is  in  charge,  is  beautifully  equipped 
but  as  yet  has  no  wounded.  She  says  the 
only  way  to  get  them  is  to  go  out,  collect 
them  and  bring  them  in  yourself.  A  great 
many  wounded  have  already  been  brought 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    21 

into  Paris  in  this  way.  If  you  wait  for 
official  permission,  the  French  red  tape  is 
so  abominable  that  you  can  never  get 
anywhere. 

She  was  on  her  way  to  the  Majestic  Hotel 
Hospital  on  the  Ave.  Kleber  near  the  Arc 
de  Triomphe,  and  I  walked  over  with  her  to 
see  it.  They  had  twelve  patients,  their  first 
lot,  who  had  been  brought  in  from  Monte- 
reau  the  night  before.  Just  as  we  arrived, 
a  half  dozen  more  came  in  an  ambulance  and 
I  helped  carry  them  in.  As  soon  as  this  was 
done,  I  was  detailed  to  hold  a  delirious  Prus- 
sian officer  who  had  a  bad  head  wound.  He 
was  just  coming  out  of  the  anaesthetic  and 
had  to  have  someone  beside  him  to  keep 
him  still;  they  had  recently  removed  some 
three  ounces  of  rotten  brains.  The  patient 
in  the  bed  on  the  other  side,  who  had  just 
been    brought    in,    and    who    was    not    yet 


22      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

undressed  and  washed,  was  wounded  in 
the  leg  and,  like  the  majority,  was  reeking 
with  dysentery  and  septic  pus.  The  Prus- 
sian officer  was  groaning  terribly  and  roll- 
ing his  eyes  so  that  I  could  only  see  the 
whites  of  them. 

I  am  not  accustomed  to  this  sort  of  thing 
and  in  five  minutes  I  was  groggy  and  the 
first  thing  I  knew,  I  had  fainted.  When  I 
had  got  my  head  clear,  I  took  a  walk  for  a 
few  minutes  in  the  air,  had  a  drink  of  brandy 
and  then  came  back.  A  nurse  showed  me 
how  to  keep  from  fainting,  by  putting  my 
head  down  between  my  knees  and  holding  it 
there  until  the  blood  comes  back;  this  I 
did  at  intervals  throughout  the  day. 

Three  of  our  men  have  wounds  in  the 
head  and  why  any  of  them  are  still  alive, 
is  more  than  I  can  understand.  One  Ger- 
man soldier  has  been  shot  through  the  top 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    23 

and  back  of  the  head,  the  bullet  coming  out 
underneath  the  right  eye,  destroying  its 
sight.  All  that  side  of  his  face  is  chocolate 
colored.  I  should  not  think  he  could  live 
through  the  night.  A  Frenchman  has  a 
sabre  cut  across  the  top  of  his  head,  which 
has  gone  into  the  skull  three  inches.  He  is 
very  restless  but  quite  conscious. 

I  left  the  hospital  at  seven  o'clock  in 
the  evening  to  go  home  and  get  some 
sleep,  as  I  had  been  up  in  the  car  all  night, 
after  having  been  told  that  if  I  came  there 
the  next  morning,  there  would  be  plenty  for 
me  to  do.  The  Metro  was  not  running,  so 
I  walked  from  the  Etoille  to  the  Opera, 
where  I  lived.  There  was  hardly  a  soul 
in  the  streets;  hardly  a  light  visible.  The 
Place  de  la  Concorde  was  as  dark  and  still 
as  a  country  churchyard,  save  for  one  huge 
search   light  on  the   top  of   the   Hotel  de 


24      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Crillon,  which  swept  the  sky  for  German 
aeroplanes.  A  rather  sharp  contrast  to 
the  Paris  of  last  year. 

Tuesday^  September  75; 

Arrived  at  the  hospital  where  I  met 
Mrs.  F.,  who  said  she  had  been  called  to 
Limoges  to  report  on  conditions  there.  The 
Frenchman  who  had  the  sabre  cut  in  his 
head  had  died  about  fifteen  minutes  before 
I  came  in.  The  hospital  is  in  charge  of 
Dr.  G.,  an  Englishman,  with  three  operat- 
ing surgeons  and  an  X-Ray  specialist  and 
a  medical  man;  all  the  nurses  are  English 
or  Canadian  and  about  half  of  them  speak 
French.  A  couple  speak  German.  There 
has  been  no  attempt  at  organization  as  yet. 
Nobody  has  had  any  particular  job  as- 
signed to  him,  no  one  knows  what  he  or 
she  is  to  do,  and  there  is  general  confusion 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    25 

and  disorder.  The  patients'  dinner  was 
very  badly  managed,  with  the  head  nurse 
running  around  looking  after  detail,  instead 
of  superintending  the  job. 

A  French  officer  was  brought  in,  in  a 
private  motor,  by  some  friends  about 
supper  time.  He  had  a  flesh  wound  in  his 
arm  from  a  piece  of  shell,  which  he  only 
got  this  noon.  After  the  wound  was  dressed 
he  took  supper  with  us  and  was  very 
interesting  in  talking  about  the  day's 
fight.  Said  that  the  German  cannon 
could  be  used  at  such  range  that  the 
French  could  not  return  their  fire.  He  had 
been  wounded  from  a  gun  11  kilometers 
away. 

I  shall  stay  here  as  an  orderly  for  the 
time  being  at  least;  help  is  needed  badly 
and  there  is  more  work  than  we  can  at- 
tempt to  do. 


26      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Wednesday^  September  i6: 

Five  more  Frenchmen  brought  in.  All  of- 
ficers and  all  but  one  quite  badly  wounded. 
The  German  who  was  shot  through  the 
back  of  the  head  has  recovered  in  the 
most  wonderful  way.  When  we  brought 
him  his  lunch  to-day  he  hoisted  himself  up, 
swung  his  legs  over  the  bed  and  said  he 
could  eat  it  himself.  He  is  incidentally 
shot  through  the  shoulder,  too,  and  his 
right  arm  broken.  The  delirious  Prussian 
officer  with  whom  I  had  my  introduction 
to  the  job,  looks  pretty  bad.  He  has  been 
continuously  out  of  his  head  and  has  not 
eaten  anything  for  three  days. 

Hospital  still  in  confusion.  This  place 
must  be  run  so  everyone  knows  what  he 
is  supposed  to  do  and  when  he  is  to  do  it. 
The  work  in  the  wards  is  exceptionally 
hard.     Nearly  all  the  patients  have  dysen- 


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MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    27 

tery  and  the  wounds  are  all  fearfully  septic 
and  require  dressing  two  and  three  times 
a  day. 

One  Frenchman  was  shot  through  the 
chest  and  while  he  was  on  the  ground  a 
German  bayonetted  him  in  the  stomach 
twice,  someone  else  kicked  him  in  the  face 
and  then  he  was  walked  over,  and  lay  on 
the  ground  for  two  days  before  he  was 
picked  up.  Both  stomach  wounds  are  dis- 
charging fecal  matter  freely.  The  French- 
man in  the  bed  next  to  him  has  two  broken 
legs  and  crawled  around  in  a  wood  for  five 
days  before  he  was  found.  We  have  given 
him  eleven  litres  of  saline  solution,  but  he 
is  still  nothing  but  skin  and  bones  and  his 
wounds  are  so  septic  that  I  do  not  see  how 
he  can  live.  This  will  give  an  idea  of  what 
the  cases  are  like. 

To-night  after  supper,  we  got  word  that 


28       THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

a  train  of  British  wounded  would  pass 
through  Villeneuve  St.  Georges  sometime 
in  the  early  morning  where  they  would 
stop  for  breakfast.  W.,  one  of  the  surgeons, 
a  very  capable  French  nurse,  and  I,  de- 
cided that  we  get  there  some  way  and  see 
if  we  could  take  off  some  of  the  more  seri- 
ously wounded.  If  we  can  get  some  of 
these  men  to  the  hospital,  we  can  probably 
save  several  limbs,  if  not  lives,  as  all  these 
wounds  are  septic  and  by  the  time  the 
men  had  got  to  the  base  it  is  probable 
they  would  be  too  far  gone  for  hope  of 
recovery.  The  thing  that  is  most  needed, 
is  to  get  the  men  off  the  field  and  to  a 
place  where  they  can  have  some  sort  of 
attention. 

We  were  told  that  it  was  absolutely  im- 
possible to  get  out  of  Paris  in  an  auto- 
mobile, and,  therefore,  went  to  the  railway 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    29 

station  where  a  train  was  leaving  for  Ville- 
neuve  at  midnight.  It  was  then  ten  o'clock 
and  the  train  was  standing  there  with 
almost  every  seat  taken.  We  decided  that 
we  would  motor  to  the  gates  at  any  rate 
and  see  whether  we  could  get  through.  We 
went  to  the  gates  where  the  little  French 
nurse  used  her  smile  and  supply  of  rapid 
French  in  such  a  way  that  in  two  minutes 
she  had  the  guard  hypnotized,  and  to  our 
amazement  we  had  been  given  permission 
to  go  through.  Once  through,  away  we 
went  for  Villeneuve,  which  was  only  eight 
miles  outside. 

This  ride  was  an  exciting  one.  We  were 
challenged  by  sentries,  who  halted  us  and 
pointed  their  bayonets  at  the  radiator  of 
the  car.  The  chauffeur  did  not  know  the 
way;  had  no  light;  and  was  thoroughly 
scared.     Each  time  we  were  challenged,  he 


30      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

stopped  the  car  so  quickly  that  we  nearly 
went  through  the  wind  shield;  but  by  use 
of  Madame's  smile  and  the  papers  we  had 
been  given  by  the  guard,  we  were  passed 
immediately  on  each  occasion.  Arriving 
at  Villeneuve,  we  went  to  a  large  warehouse 
full  of  German  prisoners  and  less  seriously 
wounded  on  all  sides.  Sentries  were  posted 
and  camp  fires  burning.  We  were  told 
that  the  train  was  not  expected  until  about 
six  in  the  morning.  It  was  then  only  about 
half  past  eleven  at  night,  so  the  three  of 
us  climbed  into  a  day  coach  that  was  on 
a  siding  and  went  to  sleep. 

The  commanding  medical  officer  here, 
a  Captain  McKinnon,  was  very  decent 
and  said  he  would  let  us  go  through  the 
whole  train  when  they  stopped  to  get 
breakfast.  We  managed  to  get  some  sleep 
and    at   half   past   five   the   train   was    an- 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    31 

nounced.  There  is  no  doubt  about  it — the 
English  know  how  to  run  things.  Every 
particular  about  the  arrival  of  that  train, 
what  everyone  should  do,  how  the  breakfast 
should  be  served,  had  been  all  thought  out 
and  everything  went  through  without  a 
hitch.  Englishmen  understand  the  value 
of  discipline. 

The  train  consisted  of  about  twenty  box 
cars,  in  each  one  of  which  were  some  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  men  packed  together  upon 
the  floor,  lying  on  straw.  About  fifteen 
of  the  cars  contained  Scotchmen  in  their 
kilts.  I  had  never  seen  such  nerve  as  these 
fellows  had.  Not  one  of  them  would  admit 
that  there  was  anything  the  matter;  they 
all  insisted  that  they  were  all  perfectly 
right  and  needed  no  attention  at  all  and 
asked  us  to  go  on  to  the  next  cars  "to  see 
to  the  other  lads."     We  got  into  each  of 


32      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

the  cars,  examining  the  men  and  found  a 
dozen  that  were  very  seriously  wounded. 
One  fellow,  a  piper  from  the  famous  Black 
Watch  Regiment,  had  his  right  arm  nearly 
severed  at  the  shoulder;  all  the  skin  and 
muscle  on  the  back  of  the  shoulder  blade 
was  hanging  loose.  Upon  operating  on  him 
later,  we  removed  the  entire  secondary 
head  of  a  shrapnel  from  under  the  skin 
beside  his  backbone.  It  was  about  the 
size  and  shape  of  the  cork  of  an  orange 
marmalade  jar.  "I'm  not  much  hurt," 
he  said  in  the  car,  "I  can  go  to  the  Base 
all  right,  thank  'e."  Poor  fellow!  He  is 
dead  now.  Tetanus  set  in  in  twenty-four 
hours  after  we  got  him.  Those  stony, 
taciturn  Scots  certainly  have  real  courage. 
"Nothing  the  matter  with  us!"  Yes,  noth- 
ing the  matter  until  they  are  dead  the 
next  day.    This  man  carried  his  pipes  right 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    33 

into  the  hospital  with  a  firm  step  and  his 
head  up.    His  name  was  Reed. 

I  helped  another  wounded  Scot  from  the 
Black  Watch,  from  the  car  to  the  ware- 
house. "Ah,  my  lad,"  he  said,  "I've  seen 
enough  of  war,  and  if  ye'd  seen  the  sights 
I  saw  Monday,  ye'd  be  sick,  too!  A  shell 
bursts  be  the  side  o'  three  o'  your  chums 
and  after  it's  burst,  there's  not  shell,  nor 
man,  nor  nothing.  All  of  them  blown  to 
rags!  Don't  tell  me  that  the  Germans 
can't  shoot  with  their  big  guns,  either! 
They  can  drop  shells,  one,  two,  three,  four, 
just  like  that,  right  down  our  lines.  There^s 
not  three  hundred  of  the  Black  Watch  left 
and  Camerons  is  about  the  same." 

Little  Madame  is  a  genius  for  putting 
things  through  with  French  officials.  She 
got  hold  of  the  station  master  and  in  about 
^VQ  minutes  had  hypnotized  him  into  giv- 


34      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ing  us  a  car  and  having  it  put  on  the  train 
which  left  for  Paris  at  8.30  A.  M.  We 
got  all  of  our  wounded,  twenty-two  in  all, 
into  it;  and  got  to  Paris  at  10  A.  M.  Went 
to  the  hospital  in  a  horrible  old  rattle-trap 
of  an  omnibus  and  another  big  cart,  which 
caused  all  the  men  much  unnecessary  pain. 
There  are  a  good  many  motors  which  could 
be  put  at  the  disposal  of  hospitals,  but  it 
is  quite  hard  to  get  hold  of  them.  Mrs.  F. 
tells  me  that  nearly  all  the  people  of  means 
who  should  be  doing  things  here  have  acted 
in  the  most  cowardly  and  selfish  way. 
They  promise  machines,  houses  and  money 
and  then  take  their  machines  out  in  the 
country  with  them,  promising  to  return 
them  the  next  day.  Not  a  machine  comes 
back.  Most  of  the  people  who  had  been 
counted  upon,  have  gradually  petered  out 
and  run  away. 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    35 

When  we  got  to  the  hospital  we  cut  the 
clothes  off  most  of  the  men  and  I  tied  them 
up  for  storage.  While  I  was  doing  this 
for  one  of  the  Scots,  who  had  a  bullet 
through  his  chest,  another  Black  Watch 
man,  by  the  way,  he  said,  "Will  ye  let  me 
have  a  look  at  those  kilts?"  I  gave  him 
the  kilts  and  continued  tying  up  his  clothes. 
I  thought  he  wanted  to  get  something  out 
of  a  pocket  (although  there  are  no  pockets 
in  kilts).  When  I  looked  up,  he  was  folding 
them  up  with  his  one  arm,  as  carefully  as 
a  woman  tucking  her  baby  in  to  sleep. 

"See  that  they're  not  mussed,  will  ye?" 
he  said,  as  he  handed  them  back  to  me. 

On  this  particular  man,  Joll,  one  of  our 
surgeons,  did  a  nice  job.  The  bullet  wound 
of  entrance  was  under  his  left  arm  and 
there  was  no  wound  of  exit.  Joll  passed 
his  hand  over  his   back  and   in  a  minute 


36      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

located  the  bullet  on  the  other  side  of  his 
body,  quite  close  underneath  the  skin.  I 
could  feel  or  see  absolutely  nothing.  This 
he  cut  out  without  removing  the  patient 
from  his  bed  or  giving  him  an  anaesthetic. 

We  are  short  of  men  this  afternoon  and 
there  are  a  great  many  operations  neces- 
sary. I  am  to  help  in  the  operating  room 
all  afternoon  and  probably  most  of  the 
night.  We  started  in  at  two  in  the  after- 
noon. The  first  operation  was  amputating 
the  French  captain's  leg  below  the  knee. 
The  foot  was  entirely  black  and  there  was 
no  chance  to  save  it.  This  operation  was 
the  first  major  operation  I  have  ever  seen 
and  by  some  chance,  proved  to  be  a  most  un- 
usual one.  When  he  had  cut  the  leg  off,  tied 
up  the  arteries  and  loosened  the  tourniquet, 
the  blood  from  one  artery  still  kept  pump- 
ing out.     Upon  investigation,  it  developed 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    37 

that  a  splinter  of  the  bullet  which  passed 
through  his  leg  had  gone  up  and  cut  this 
artery  about  two  inches  above  the  place 
where  he  had  amputated,  and  it  was  a 
question  of  taking  the  leg  off  above  the 
knee,  or  getting  up  in  some  way  and  tying 
that  artery.  This  JoU  did  after  twenty 
minutes'  work.  Of  course,  I  know  nothing 
about  surgery,  but  I  do  know  that  that 
man  understands  his  business.  It  was  one 
of  the  most  interesting  hours  I  ever  spent 
in  my  life.  I  did  not  have  the  slightest 
feeling  of  faintness.  The  work  in  the 
ward  has  cured  me  of  anything  like 
that. 

No.  I  in  Ward  i  is  dead  at  last.  The 
poor  fellow  had  two  mitrailleuse  bullets 
through  his  head,  and  how  he  managed 
to  keep  alive  for  four  days  since  we  have 
had   him,   is   incredible.     He  was   so   nice 


38      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

while  he  was  still  conscious  and  kept  apolo- 
gizing to  us  for  the  trouble  he  gave. 

The  next  two  operations  were  on  Scots 
from  the  Cameron  Highlanders.  Both  of 
them  had  terrible  elbows,  although  not  so 
septic  as  usual.  One  man  had  lost  all  the 
flesh  on  one  side  and  the  other  had  his 
elbow-joint  and  forearm  splintered  and 
broken  in  several  places.  The  bullet  which 
struck  this  last  man  had  broken  into  sev- 
eral pieces  and  had  torn  the  arm  all  to  bits. 
This  fellow  is  about  as  perfect  an  animal 
as  I  have  ever  seen.  He  said  he  was  the 
champion  sprinter  of  his  Regiment.  Beauti- 
fully made  and  beautifully  muscled.  Poor 
fellow,  he  is  a  cripple  for  life  now. 

To-night  we  brought  in  a  Frenchman  who 
had  a  severe  gunshot  wound  in  the  back 
of  his  head.  He  was  quite  delirious.  In 
some   way   the   bullet   has    stimulated    the 


o 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    39 

part  of  his  brain  that  he  used  when  he 
was  a  child  of  about  five.  He  seems  to 
have  forgotten  everything  else.  He  shouts, 
laughs  and  hurrahs  and  sings  little  nursery 
songs  which  he  must  have  learned  when 
he  was  a  child.  It  is  pathetic,  but  he  is 
in  such  a  splendid  humor  it  is  hard  to  keep 
from  laughing  yourself;  he  is  a  big  hand- 
some fellow  about  23  years  old,  evidently 
a  man  of  good  birth,  although  a  private. 
We  operated  on  him  at  one  o'clock  this 
morning,  trephining  the  skull.  JoU  got 
about  a  teaspoonful  of  splintered  bone  out 
of  his  brain,  which  had  been  driven  down 
from  one  to  two  inches,  but  said  it  was  too 
dangerous  to  try  to  remove  the  bullet, 
although  he  located  it  with  his  telephone 
probe.  How  he  can  go  digging  around  in 
the  brain  the  way  he  does  without  killing 
the   patients,   seems    marvellous.     He    says 


40      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

there  is  not  much  chance  for  this  man 
recovering  his  senses,  and  that  he  will  prob- 
ably be  a  permanent  imbecile. 

Friday^  September  i8: 

The  hospital  is  entirely  full  now,  and 
we  want  a  place  to  put  about  six  con- 
valescents so  that  we  can  make  room  for 
others.  Two  surgeons  and  six  nurses  of 
our  staff  arrived  this  morning  from  Mon- 
tereau,  from  where  they  have  come  bring- 
ing a  barge  load  of  wounded  up  the  Seine. 
All  these  men  are  badly  wounded,  but 
comparatively  few  have  dysentery,  which  is 
a  relief.  We  operated  on  them  nearly  all 
day.  Most  of  them  are  English  and  Scotch 
and  have  wonderful  nerve.  The  men  are 
all  pretty  well  played  out  and  under  weight. 
It  takes  hardly  any  chloroform  to  produce 
anaesthesia.     Many   of   them    shout   about 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    41 

the  battle  as  they  are  going  under.  All 
of  these  men  have  been  in  action  almost 
every  day  since  the  beginning  of  August. 
One  old  French  captain  kept  shouting, 
"Allons,  mes  enfants,  tous  ensemble,  en 
avant;  en  avant;  en  avan 1.    A h!" 

One  of  the  Scots  told  me  that  when  the 
men  deployed  and  lay  down  and  they  gave 
the  order  to  commence  firing,  five  minutes 
afterwards,  you  would  only  see  about  one 
man  out  of  six  firing,  all  the  rest  would  be 
fast  asleep. 

Three  English  officers  were  brought  in 
to-night.  Two  of  them  are  boys  of  twenty- 
two  and  twenty-three  and  have  nothing  at 
all  the  matter  with  them  excepting  that 
they  are  tired  out.  One  was  diagnosed  as 
typhoid.  One  of  them  came  in  lying  on  a 
stretcher  beside  a  Tommy.  I  got  into  the 
ambulance  and  started  to  take  them  out 


42      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

The  Tommy  said,  "Get  the  Orficer  out 
first,  sir."  The  "Orficer"  took  this  as  a 
matter  of  course  and  allowed  himself  to  be 
removed.  I  supposed  that  he  was  badly- 
wounded.  There  was  nothing  the  matter 
with  him  at  all  except  that  he  wanted  a  rest. 

The  first  thing  he  said  was,  "Cawn't  I 
have  a  bawth?" 

I  was  furious!  I  said,  "I  think  we  will 
attend  to  the  wounded  men  before  we  give 
you  any  'bawths.'" 

He  then  said,  "I  say,  don't  I  know  you?" 

"No,"  I  answered,  "I'm  quite  sure  you 
don't"  and  turned  my  back  on  him.  The 
Tommy  who  had  asked  me  to  take  his 
superior  officer  out  of  the  ambulance  first, 
had  his  leg  amputated  at  the  knee  that 
afternoon,  got  tetanus  and  died  four  days 
afterward. 

I  want  to  say  right  here  that  these  two 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    43 

fellows  are  in  a  class  by  themselves  as 
far  as  English  officers  are  concerned.  As  a 
whole,  they  are  the  finest  lot  of  men  I  have 
ever  seen. 

An  English  boy  upon  whom  we  operated 
to-night,  was  hit  on  the  right  side  of  the 
jaw.  The  entire  side  of  his  jaw  is  gone. 
You  could  put  an  orange  into  his  mouth 
through  the  cheek.  What  is  left  is  horribly 
swollen  and  dripping  yellow  septic  pus.  I 
said,  "That  fellow  really  cannot  live,  can 
he.-*"  But  JoU  said,  "Oh,  yes,  there  is  no 
reason  why  he  should  die,  if  we  can  keep 
him  from  getting  poisoned."  The  bottom 
part  of  his  tongue  is  gone,  so  that  he  can- 
not speak  articulately  and  if  he  holds  his 
head  back,  his  tongue  falls  backward  in 
his  mouth  and  chokes  him.  He  has  to  lie 
face  downward  and  of  course  cannot  take 
anything  but  liquid  food.     When  he  feels 


44      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

like  eating  anything,  he  raps  on  the  table 
with  his  feeder  and  we  go  to  his  bed,  put  a 
basin  in  front  of  him  and  a  rubber  cloth 
around  his  neck;  then  he  pushes  a  rubber 
tube  down  his  throat  and  we  pour  in  beef 
tea,  or  milk,  through  a  funnel.  About 
every  other  swallow,  it  goes  down  the  wrong 
way  and  he  strangles  for  two  minutes;  then 
nods  his  head  as  if  to  say  "all  ready  again." 
In  the  course  of  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
feeding  in  this  way,  which  must  be  exceed- 
ingly painful,  he  can  get  down  about  one 
feeder  full  of  beef  tea  or  milk,  half  of  an 
ordinary  glassful. 

I  said,  "My  gracious!  you've  got  more 
nerve  than  anyone  I've  ever  seen." 

He  made  a  quick  motion  with  his  hand, 
like  an  umpire  waving  away  players  at  a 
baseball  game,  frowned  at  me  and  gurgled, 
"I'm  all  right." 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    45 

On  for  the  night  tonight,  although  I 
have  been  on  all  day  and  got  to  bed  last 
night  at  one  o'clock,  after  having  been  up 
for  two  days  and  a  night  in  succession. 
Took  a  walk  with  G.  first.  By  the  way, 
G.  and  N.  are  both  professional  singers. 
They  have  never  done  this  sort  of  work 
before  and  are  perfect  trumps.  The  scenes 
that  we  experience  in  the  wards  daily  are 
not  exactly  designed  for  artistic  tempera- 
ments. N.  nearly  cries  at  some  of  the 
things  he  has  to  do,  but  he  sticks  right  to 
it  and  finishes  them  out  like  a  good  one. 

My  first  night  in  Ward  2  was  pretty 
bad.  Nearly  all  of  the  men  had  been 
operated  on  either  that  day  or  the  day  be- 
fore, and  their  wounds  were  commencing 
to  pain  them  fearfully.  The  Scotch  piper 
who  had  the  piece  of  shrapnel  taken  out  of 
his  back  was  in  terrible  agony.    He  is  get- 


46      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ting  a  stiff  neck  and  spells  of  breathlessness, 
which  means  lockjaw,  and  the  poor  fellow 
will  be  out  of  his  pain  before  very  long. 
I  tried  to  comfort  him  and  told  him  what 
we  had  got  out  of  his  back. 

"Thank  God  for  that,"  he  said,  "it 
makes  me  feel  easier,"  but  the  convulsions 
became  more  frequent  and  terrible  and  he 
died  in  agony  at  seven  in  the  morning. 

We  moved  the  officers  into  another  ward, 
which  was  quite  an  undertaking,  as  most  of 
them  were  badly  wounded  and  two  weighed 
over  200  pounds. 

More  wounded  coming  in  and  operations 
as  fast  as  we  can  do  them.  There  has  been 
terrific  fighting  along  the  Marne  and  the 
Aisne,  all  of  this  week.  Williams  is  splen- 
did with  his  X-Rays.  Nearly  all  the  pa- 
tients are  photographed  before  operating 
upon  them.     Williams  has  located  a  great 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    47 

many  bullets,  pieces  of  shell,  overcoat,  etc., 
and  makes  first  rate  pictures  of  fractures. 
These,  he  develops  in  about  three  minutes 
and  brings  into  the  operating  room  so  that 
J.  and  S.  can  see  them  before  the  patient 
is  thoroughly  under  anaesthesia. 

G.  left  for  London  this  morning  and 
before  leaving  drew  up  a  very  rough  or- 
ganization chart,  which  assigns  me  as  an 
attache  of  the  operating  room.  This  is 
splendid.  I  have  been  practically  doing 
the  work  of  surgeon's  assistant  there  for 
the  past  48  hours. 

Saturday,  September  ig: 

Went  to  bed  at  ten  in  the  morning  and 
slept  for  three  hours.  Came  back  to  the 
hospital  at  two  in  the  afternoon,  where 
we  operated  continuously  until  two  in  the 
morning.     Four  head  cases,  four  fractured 


f-^- 


48      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

femurs,  three  arms  and  a  number  of  minor 
operations. 

Sunday,  September  20: 

Slept  until  noon.  Had  some  lunch  at 
two  and  went  out  and  walked  in  the  Bois 
for  an  hour.  It  was  the  first  fresh  air 
I  have  had  for  some  time.  Had  supper 
with  F.,  who  wanted  to  talk  over  the  pros- 
pect of  going  to  some  of  the  field  hospitals, 
which  it  is  proposed  to  establish  close  to 
the  line  of  battle.  It  has  been  my  wish  to 
do  this  sort  of  work,  and  I  feel  I  could  be 
of  far  more  use  out  there,  than  in  a  hos- 
pital. If  the  men  could  only  receive  some 
sort  of  attention  on  the  field,  it  would  be  a 
very  different  story  when  they  are  finally 
got  to  the  hospital.  Out  of  twenty-five 
patients  in  Ward  i,  fully  half  of  them 
lay  on  the  battlefield  for  three  days  with- 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    49 

out  food  or  water,  before  they  were  picked 
up.    Some  of  them  four  and  five  days. 

Monday,  September  21: 

When  I  arrived  at  the  hospital  this 
morning  I  was  informed  that  they  had  de- 
cided to  put  G.  and  myself  on  night  duty 
for  the  coming  week.  This  is  something 
of  a  disappointment,  but  I  shall  be  back 
again  in  the  operating  room  at  the  end  of 
that  time. 

There  were  four  deaths  on  Sunday.  The 
Prussian  with  whom  I  had  my  introduction 
to  the  job;  the  man  with  the  awful  leg  in 
Ward  I,  and  two  others  whom  we  had 
just  taken  in  and  who  were  about  dead 
when  they  arrived.  One  of  them  died  a 
few  hours  after  having  his  leg  amputated 
at  the  hip.  There  really  was  not  much 
use  in  doing  it;  the  leg  was  so  rotten  that 


so      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

you  could  nearly  have  pulled  it  ofF  with 
your  hands;  besides  that,  the  poor  fellow 
had  fearful  dysentery  and  had  become  so 
reduced  that  he  looked  like  pictures  of 
people  in  India  who  have  died  from  famine. 
After  lunch,  went  down  town  with 
Mrs.  F.  in  her  car,  where  we  inspected 
the  Ritz  Hotel,  which  has  been  turned 
into  a  hospital.  There  are  sixty-four  beds 
there,  splendid  equipment;  about  twenty-five 
nurses,  everything  that  could  be  wished, 
and  no  patients.  The  reason  is,  that  the 
French  doctors  in  charge  will  not  move 
without  authority  from  the  officials  of  the 
Bureau  de  Sante.  We  told  them  that  they 
would  never  get  any  patients  if  they  waited 
for  authority  from  them.  Mrs.  F.  has  been 
making  a  list  of  available  beds  now  waiting 
for  patients  in  Paris,  and  says  she  is  sure 
there  are  over  nine  hundred,  yet  the  French 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    51 

red  tape  and  petty  officialism  is  so  abomi- 
nable that  nothing  is  done,  and  wounded 
men  are  lying  at  the  gates  of  Paris  amid 
conditions  that  can  hardly  be  described. 
At  Limoges — in  the  center  of  France — two 
weeks  ago,  there  were  over  nine  thousand 
wounded,  and  accommodations  for  about 
half  that  number;  there  was  absolutely  no 
provision  for  their  care  at  all,  and  they 
are  dying  like  flies  in  the  autumn.*  The 
French  management  of  wounded  trains  is  so 
shocking  that  it  can  hardly  be  spoken  of. 
Men  are  crowded  into  box  cars  where  they  lie 
about  on  the  floor,  dead  and  living  together, 
for  three  or  four  days,  in  filth  that  is  beyond 
description.     All  the  men  have  dysentery, 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  war.  They  had  no  time  in  which  to 
organize  themselves  or  make  any  preparation  for 
handling  the  wounded.  All  their  efforts  had  been  di- 
rected toward  saving  Paris. 


52      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

all  the  wounds  are  septic  and,  of  course, 
they  cannot  remove  any  part  of  their 
clothes  which  have  been  on  their  bodies 
for  weeks.  We  have  spoken  to  the  Bureau 
de  Sante  but  they  say,  "We  must  consider 
this  one  of  the  horrors  of  war."  Joll  said 
that  in  one  place  the  wounded  were  in 
such  numbers  that  the  French  surgeons 
merely  amputated  above  the  wound  in 
every  case  where  careful  dressing  would  be 
required. 

W.,  who  went  out  to  Villeneuve  with 
us,  came  in  from  another  expedition  for 
wounded  to-night;  they  had  been  out  along 
the  Marne  River  in  our  ambulance  with 
its  white  body  and  Red  Cross  painted  on 
the  sides.  As  they  were  passing  a  wood 
about  one  hundred  meters  from  the  road, 
twenty  or  thirty  Germans  sprang  out  of 
it  and  opened  fire  upon   them  with   their 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    53 

carbines.  This  is  the  first  time  I  have 
really  had  first  hand  information  of  Ger- 
mans firing  upon  Red  Cross  ambulances. 
They  put  six  holes  through  the  cover  of 
the  car,  but  fortunately  did  not  hit  any- 
body in  it.  There  are  considerable  numbers 
of  Germans  who  have  become  lost  during 
this  rapidly  moving  line  of  fighting  and 
are  prowling  about  the  country,  hiding 
during  the  daytime  and  ready  to  take  any 
means  of  rejoining  their  companions. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  occurrence  in 
the  suburbs  of  Paris  these  days,  to  find  a 
stranded  German  soldier  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, trying  to  rob  your  chicken  roost. 

German  atrocities  have  been,  of  course, 
much  overdrawn,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that 
many  of  the  stories  are  true.  A  Belgian 
who  had  been  in  the  Home  Guard  of 
Brussels  and  who  had  fought  at  Louvain, 


54      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

told  me  that  he  had  seen  Germans  kill 
wounded  men  on  the  ground  by  smashing 
them  on  the  head  with  the  butts  of  their 
carbines.  I  said:  "Did  you  actually  see 
them  with  your  own  eyes?"  "Oui,  Mon- 
sieur, pas  une  fois,  mais  douze  fois!"  he 
replied.  Other  French  soldiers  have  told 
me,  however,  that  while  they  lay  wounded 
on  the  ground,  the  Germans  stopped  and 
gave  them  water  to  drink  out  of  their  own 
canteens.  As  Mr.  Burke  says,  "You  cannot 
draw  an  indictment  against  a  whole  nation." 

Tuesday,  September  22: 

A  busy  night  to-night.  There  were  three 
head  operations.  We  got  the  bullets  out 
of  two. 

We  brought  in  a  new  wounded  man 
to-day,  who  has  two  fingers  of  his  right 
hand  gone  and  a  very  septic  wound.    He  is 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    55 

a  fine  looking  fellow,  a  private  in  the  Cold- 
stream Guards,  and  the  first  man  I  have 
seen  yet,  either  officer  or  private,  who  has 
talked  coherently  about  the  tactics  of  the 
fighting.  He  knew  what  his  regiment  and 
the  other  regiments  with  his,  were  trying 
to  do  in  most  of  the  actions  they  were  en- 
gaged in,  naming  nearly  all  of  them. 

He  was  very  interesting  and  had  been 
in  action  almost  every  day  for  four  weeks. 
Said  they  had  only  been  landed  in  Ostend 
for  fifteen  minutes,  when  they  had  their 
first  skirmish  with  a  German  patrol  which 
ran  into  them  without  knowing  they  were 
there.  Said  that  at  Mons  the  slaughter 
of  the  Germans  had  been  terrific;  that  he 
had  seen  men  shooting  from  behind  piles 
of  dead  Germans  three  feet  high.  Said 
that  a  good  deal  of  the  work  had  been 
hand-to-hand    mix-ups.      Said    that    about 


56      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

August  1 2th  they  had  nearly  the  entire 
right  wing  of  the  German  army  surrounded, 
and  that  if  the  Germans  had  not  broken 
through  the  Belgian  left,  they  would  have 
captured  or  killed  all  of  them.  As  it  was, 
the  Germans  lost  about  twenty-five  thou- 
sand. They  then  asked  for  an  armistice 
for  twenty-four  hours  to  bury  their  dead, 
but  this  armistice  was  not  granted,  as  the 
real  purpose  of  asking  was  to  give  them 
time  to  reorganize  themselves.  Said  that 
the  Germans  fired  on  Red  Cross  organiza- 
tions consistently,  that  the  first  time  they 
had  sent  out  a  detachment  of  the  R.  A. 
M.  C.  in  the  daytime  near  Mons,  the 
Germans  almost  annihilated  them.  Out  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  that  went  out, 
only  about  ninety  returned.  Since  then  all 
this  work  has  been  done  at  night. 
One    of    the    first    wounded    we    got    in 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    57 

from  the  Marne,  is  a  little  aesthetic  looking 
Frenchman,  whom  we  call  "Peeping  Tom" 
because  he  is  always  peeping  like  a  little 
chicken.  I  don't  blame  him,  for  he  has  a 
nasty  septic  wound  on  the  thigh  and  frac- 
tured femur,  but  he  is  a  nuisance  and  is 
always  asking  for  this,  that  or  the  other 
thing,  whether  he  needs  it  or  not.  The 
Sisters  had  him  in  a  private  room  at  Mon- 
tereau  and  he  was  well  spoiled  by  them. 
He  is  only  about  twenty-two.  A  couple 
of  days  ago  he  was  making  an  unusual 
amount  of  racket  about  the  "jambe," 
and  I  went  over  and  asked  him  what  was 
the  matter. 

"Oh,  ca  fait  mal;  ce  n'est  pas  bien  place," 
he  moaned. 

I  raised  the  knee  slightly  as  he  directed 
me  to,  and  when  he  said  that  it  was  easier, 
I  put  a   china   soap   cup   which  was   lying 


58       THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLF 

on  the  table  beside  the  bed,  underneath 
it  to  keep  it  in  that  position. 

"Oh,  la,  la;  Oh,  Docteur!"  he  shouted. 

"What's  the  matter.'*  Is  it  hurting  you 
worse.'*"  said  I. 

"No,''  he  replied. 

"Well,  what's  the  matter  then.?"  I  asked. 

He  clasped  his  hands  in  front  of  him, 
holding  them  out  toward  me  with  a  look 
of  supplication. 

"Oh,  mais  c'est  si  froid!"  he  wailed. 

"You  shut  up!"  said  I,  laughing,  and  he 
had  to  even  smile  himself. 

Got  to  bed  at  ten  in  the  morning  and 
slept  until  one.  Back  again  at  two  in  the 
afternoon  for  another  week  of  day  duty. 

Thursday^  September  24: 

We  need  some  system  here  badly.  The 
nurses  may  be  very  good  technical  nurses, 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    59 

but  not  one  of  them  knows  the  first  thing 
about  organization  or  management.  After 
half  a  dozen  lunches  where  everything  was 
in  confusion — three  people  doing  one  job 
and  no  people  doing  two  jobs, — I  thought 
it  was  about  time  to  outline  the  work  a  bit 
myself.  So  I  drew  up  an  organization  chart 
assigning  everybody  definite  duties.  The 
head  nurse  said  she  hadn't  any  objections 
to  my  trying  it,  so  we  put  it  into  operation. 
The  meals,  at  least,  will  run  smoothly  now, 
although  the  difficulty  about  running  a 
place  like  this  is  that  it  is  not  on  a  hiring 
and  firing  basis,  like  other  business  or- 
ganizations. If  you  have  inefficient  help 
you  have  to  keep  them,  and  do  the  best 
you  can. 

A  boy  was  brought  in  here  this  morning 
with  a  hand  and  arm  like  nothing  I  have 
ever   seen   before.     He   already   shows   the 


6o      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

first  symptoms  of  tetanus.  We  have  kept 
the  arm  in  a  bath  and  given  him  the 
maximum  amount  of  tetanus  serum.  His 
hand  is  a  slimy  green  thing,  the  size  of  a 
mop,  with  the  poor  fingers  like  rotten 
cucumbers.  It  cannot  be  described  on 
paper,  one  has  to  see  it  to  get  an  idea  of 
what  it  is  like. 

Another  man  who  has  been  shot  in  the 
leg  has  something  the  matter  with  his 
stomach,  too,  and  has  been  vomiting  steadily 
since  nine  o'clock  this  morning.  They  have 
given  him  medicine,  but  it  does  not  stop, 
and  he  is  so  reduced  and  exhausted  that 
he  does  not  look  as  if  he  could  live  long. 

We  have  another  bad  case.  A  young 
English  sergeant  with  a  piece  of  his  spine 
shot  away.  He  has  been  married  only  six 
months  and  his  wife  is  in  Paris  and  at 
the  hospital  now.     It  is  very  pathetic.     He 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    6i 

cannot  live,  and  to  hear  them  talking  about 
what  they  will  do  when  he  gets  better,  al- 
most makes  one  cry.  There  is  no  use  tell- 
ing her  that  he  is  going  to  die. 

To-night  JoU  gave  instructions  to  have 
four  patients  in  Ward  No.  2  sent  into  the 
theater,  in  a  certain  order  and  at  a  certain 
time.  The  day  shift  went  off  duty  and  the 
night  shift  came  on  duty  without  being 
given  these  instructions.  As  a  result,  when 
he  was  ready  to  commence  work,  no  one 
in  the  ward  knew  anything.  JoU  was 
furious;  sent  upstairs  and  got  the  head 
nurse  out  of  bed  and  had  her  come  down 
and  point  out  the  patients.  He  is  quite 
right;  she  must  be  made  to  understand 
that  it  is  necessary  to  systematize  her 
work. 

Very  interesting  operations  again  to-night 
and  I  stayed  at  the  hospital  until  i  A.  M. 


62      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

One  operation  was  the  injection  of  Stovane 
serum  into  the  spinal  column.  It  renders 
the  part  of  the  body  below  the  point  of  injec- 
tion insensible  to  pain  for  twenty-four  hours 
or  so.  Within  ten  minutes  after  giving  this 
injection,  JoU  cut  into  the  patient's  leg, 
hooked  out  the  sciatic  nerve  and  injected 
anti-tetanic  serum  into  it.  The  patient 
was  sitting  up  and  talking  all  the  time  with- 
out any  feeling  of  pain  at  all.  This  was 
wonderful  work.  The  sciatic  nerve  is 
almost  in  the  middle  of  the  thigh  and  JoU 
got  down  to  it  in  about  one  minute  with- 
out cutting  a  muscle  or  losing  more  than 
a  few  teaspoonfuls  of  blood. 

Friday,  September  25: 

Saw  Mr.  Bacon,  the  former  Ambassador 
to  France,  this  morning  and  had  an  hour's 
talk  with   him.     He   says   there  isn't  any 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    63 

chance  of  getting  to  the  front.  The  Eng- 
lish and  French  armies  won't  have  any 
outsiders  messing  about  their  work.  I 
think  they  are  quite  right,  but  it  is  a  dis- 
appointment. Mr.  Bacon  has  been  to  the 
general  staff,  so  there  is  not  much  use  in 
trying  anything  after  that. 

Dinner  and  supper  went  off  in  first  rate 
shape  to-day,  and  we  cleaned  up  the  ward 
and  pantry  and  got  everything  that  wasn't 
working,  out  of  the  way. 

The  man  who  was  vomiting  all  day  yester- 
day, died  this  morning  shortly  after  I  came 
in.  It  was  rather  a  sudden  death.  He  had 
seemed  easier  and  was  talking  to  a  nurse 
beside  his  bed — asked  her  to  get  him  some- 
thing; she  went  away  and  when  she  came 
back  again — within  one  minute — he  was 
dead.  We  don't  yet  know  what  he  died  of, 
except  that  he  was  generally  all  in. 


64      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

The  young  sergeant  who  had  had  the 
section  of  his  spine  shot  away,  is  also  dead, 
and  his  poor  little  wife  is  in  a  pitiful  state. 
N.  took  her  out  riding  in  an  automobile. 
He  can  talk  to  people  like  a  father;  and  she 
needs  a  change  of  scene  and  fresh  air  or 
else  she  will  break  down,  too. 

Saturday^  September  26: 

M.,  the  little  French  nurse  who  went  to 
Villeneuve  with  us  to  get  the  wounded,  is 
suspected  of  being  a  German  spy!  I  do 
not  know  what  to  think.  I  cannot  size  her 
up  exactly.  She  is  certainly  very  smart, 
and  doesn't  look  like  a  French  woman. 
Mme.  P.  who  sent  her  to  us  from  the 
Union  des  Femmes  de  France,  told  us  she 
didn't  know  much  about  her,  and  sug- 
gested that  we  watch  her.  N.  is  a  good 
authority   on   languages,    speaking   French, 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    65 

English  and  German  perfectly  enough  to 
pass  for  any  one  of  the  three.  He  says  he 
knows  she  is  not  French  by  the  way  she 
pronounces  certain  French  words,  and  that 
he  is  almost  certain  she  is  German  on  ac- 
count of  other  distinctive  pronunciations. 
I  do  not  know  what  to  think. 

I  told  little  M.  that  there  was  a  report 
going  about  to  the  effect  that  she  was  a 
German  spy.  She  had  been  told  this  be- 
fore, and  I  wanted  to  see  what  she  would 
say.  She  seemed  quite  angry,  and  said  that 
people  could  be  put  in  prison  for  making 
assertions  of  that  kind  without  cause. 
I  told  her  that  it  was  all  nonsense,  of  course, 
and  that  none  of  us  thought  there  was 
anything  in  it  and  that  we  all  knew  she 
was  French.  She  said  she  could  prove  it 
easily  enough.     (Later  on  she  did.) 

Our   relations   with   the   management   of 


66      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

this  hotel  are  decidedly  unpleasant.  I 
am  quite  sure  that  the  only  reason  the 
hotel  was  given  as  a  hospital  was  as  a 
sort  of  insurance  proposition.  When  the 
Germans  were  at  the  gates  of  Paris  and 
their  entrance  to  the  city  imminent,  a 
hotel  containing  wounded  soldiers,  espe- 
cially wounded  Germans,  would  be  less 
liable  to  be  looted  and  damaged.  Now 
that  there  is  no  chance  of  the  Germans 
getting  in  here,  I  think  they  would  jolly 
well  like  to  kick  us  all  out.  The  French 
manager  is  an  impossible  little  fellow,  and 
has  been  given  instructions  by  someone 
else  to  cut  down  expenses  to  the  last  cent. 
He  runs  about  having  electric  lights  turned 
off,  and  hiding  cups,  plates,  knives,  forks, 
etc.,  and  making  it  generally  uncomfortable 
for  us.  I  had  to  go  out  this  morning  and 
buy  three   dozen   drinking  glasses   for  the 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    e^ 

patients  in  our  ward;  it  saved  time  to  get 
them  that  way  rather  than  fight  with  these 
people. 

The  little  Scotch  boy  with  the  awful 
hand  is  beginning  to  have  convulsions.  It 
is  terrible  to  watch  him,  but  he  is  kept  so 
full  of  morphine  that  he  does  not  feel 
much.    He  has  such  a  nice  gentle  face. 

Sunday,  September  27: 

Four  bombs  were  dropped  on  Paris  at 
noon  to-day;  one  of  them  landed  in  the 
Avenue  du  Trocadero,  about  300  yards 
from  the  hospital,  and  blew  a  little  girl's 
leg  off.  It  also  came  quite  close  to  Mr. 
Herrick,  the  American  Ambassador.  Not 
much  other  damage  done,  however. 

The  boy  with  the  awful  hand  is  somewhat 
better.  Joll  says  he  is  likely  to  live,  as 
the    convulsions    extend    only    above    the 


68      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

waist.  He  hasn't  yet  had  any  that  extend 
over  his  entire  body,  where  the  head  and 
heels  are  bent  backwards  like  a  bow  un- 
til they  almost  meet.  I  do  not  know  why 
a  hand  and  arm  like  that  are  left  on  him, 
but  the  nurses  tell  me  that  when  a  patient 
has  tetanus,  they  don't  operate. 

Helped  to  dress  the  captain's  leg  to-day 
with  Dr.  S.  and  Tom.  ...  It  is  wonder- 
fully improved.  A  terrible  septic  shell 
wound  in  the  thigh  and  fractured  femur. 
The  first  time  I  saw  that  leg  I  thought: 
What  is  the  use  of  keeping  it  on.f^  The  man 
had  been  in  a  German  hospital  for  two 
weeks,  where  the  leg  had  received  prac- 
tically no  attention,  although  he  said  they 
did  what  they  could  for  him.  When  I  first 
picked  it  up,  the  skin  parted  at  the  heel 
like  wet  tissue  paper,  and  yellow  slime  ran 
out,  while  the  wound  on  the  thigh  looked 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    69 

and  smelt  like  rotten  fish.  Now  the  flesh 
is  good  and  red,  and  although  there  are 
enormous  incisions  on  each  side  which  go 
clean  through,  he  will  probably  be  able  to 
walk  on  it  before  this  time  next  year.  We 
take  almost  a  basinful  of  stufling  out  of 
it  every  time  it  is  dressed.  It  reminds  me 
of  a  conjurer  pulling  guinea  pigs  and  things 
out  of  a  hat.  There  seems  to  be  no  end 
to  them. 

Monday,  September  28: 

Had  breakfast  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Empire 
this  morning,  as  the  hospital  one  is  ir- 
regular and  bad, — one  waiter  for  fourteen 
men,  and  twenty-five  nurses.  The  other 
morning  we  came  in  and  found  only  six 
cups  on  the  table.  Upon  asking  why  there 
were  no  more,  we  were  informed  that  the 
management  had   not  left  out  any   more. 


70      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

.It  appears  that  they  had  set  aside  one  cup 
each  for  the  patients,  and  one  each  for  the 
staff,  etc.,  and  that  some  of  the  cups  were 
mislaid.  Williams  ran  and  got  the  manager 
and  told  him  he  would  punch  his  head,  if 
he  didn't  get  us  other  cups  in  five  min- 
utes. 

We  have  a  new  head  nurse  in  Ward  2 
now,  Miss  W.  She  is  fine,  the  first 
woman  we  have  had  here  yet  who  knows 
how  to  give  orders.  Miss  A.  is  a  nice 
girl,  and,  I  suppose,  a  fairly  good  nurse, 
but  she  knows  no  more  about  management 
than  a  babe  in  arms.  This  new  nurse  will 
soon  have  everything  in  shipshape.  She 
accomplished  more  this  morning  than  the 
rest  of  them  have  done  in  a  week. 

The  boy  with  the  awful  hand  died  this 
morning.  It  was  a  shame  to  have  him  go; 
he  made  a  splendid  fight  for  life  and  we  all 


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MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    71 

thought  he  was  going  to  get  welL  There  is 
not  much  hope  for  tetanus,  though.  I  believe 
the  mortality  is  over  ninety  per  cent.  I  have 
bought  a  pair  of  gloves  and  a  linen  coat. 
I  am  afraid  to  handle  patients  like  that  with 
my  bare  hands  and  have  them  touch  my 
clothes.  If  you  should  have  anything  open 
on  your  hand  and  get  any  of  that  stuff  into 
it,  it  is  an  even  chance  that  you  will  get 
tetanus  yourself,  and  I  handle  dirty  cases 
hourly. 

Had  a  little  conversation  with  my  friend 
Jock  Constable,  the  Black  Watch  Scot,  who 
has  been  in  the  ward  for  some  ten  days. 
He  said  that  when  he  first  got  hit  (they 
were  charging  the  Germans  with  the  bayo- 
net), it  turned  him  end  over  end,  and  he 
was  unconscious  for  about  an  hour.  He 
said  when  he  came  to,  he  was  lying  in  a 
little  depression  on  the  ground  with  some 


72      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

other  wounded  men.  Beside  him  was  a 
German  whose  head  was  blown  off.  At 
about  dusk  the  Germans  came  up. 

"I  saw  them  a  comin',  so  I  closed  my 
eyes,"  he  said,  "but  I  could  na  help  from 
smiling  hearin'  'en  say  *Yah,  yah,  yah'  to 
each  other." 

The  Germans  went  over  them  and  took 
their  bully  beef  and  hard  tack,  which  they 
immediately  devoured.  They  left  soon 
afterwards,  and  it  began  to  rain  and  con- 
tinued raining  all  night. 

In  the  morning  he  heard  some  soldiers 
coming  up,  and  when  he  saw  they  were 
English,  he  said,  "Is  the  coast  clear?" 
They  answered,  "You're  all  right,  Jock, 
they're  all  ahead  of  us  now."  So  he  got 
up  and  got  to  the  rear  himself  and 
sent  the  stretcher  bearers  up  for  the 
others. 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    73 

Tuesday^  September  2q: 

Our  ambulance  brought  in  seven  new 
cases  from  Noisy-le-Sec,  all  of  which  are 
pretty  bad.  One  man  has  a  bullet  through 
the  left  side  of  his  face  which  has  taken 
out  nearly  all  of  the  upper  row  of  canine 
and  molar  teeth.  The  face  is  badly  swollen 
and  there  is  no  wound  of  exit.  He  is 
conscious,  though,  and  JoU  says  he  will 
probably  get  well  even  if  we  do  not  remove 
the  bullet.  Face  wounds  look  terrible  but 
they  are  generally  much  less  serious  than 
they  seem.  I  would  a  great  deal  rather 
have  a  face  wound  like  that  than  a  frac- 
tured femur.  Another  boy — one  of  the 
little  chasseurs  Alpines — has  a  bullet  wound 
passing  sideways  through  his  wind-pipe. 
He  was  just  able  to  breathe.  Joll  did  the 
tracheotomy  operation  on  him  with  local 
anaesthetics  in  about  ten  minutes,  and  had 


74      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

him  back  in  the  ward  breathing  through  a 
silver  tube  stuck  in  his  neck  above  the 
collar  bone.  They  say  he  will  be  all  right 
in  two  weeks.  Another  man  has  a  shrapnel 
bullet  which  came  down  on  him  from  above, 
cutting  through  his  neck  about  four  inches, 
but  not  breaking  the  jaw.  It  then  passed 
into  the  shoulder  at  the  point  of  the  scapula, 
breaking  the  bone  and  lodging  under  the 
skin  at  the  neck  of  the  humerus.  Took 
out  the  bullet  and  sewed  up  the  wound. 
The  face  wound  is  merely  superficial. 

The  next  man  had  the  largest  assortment 
of  wounds  that  I  have  seen  yet.  All  of 
them  were  over  ten  days  old  and  you  could 
smell  him  from  across  the  room.  He  had 
a  cut  on  the  top  of  his  head  four  or  five 
inches  long,  with  the  skin  hanging  loose. 
His  right  shoulder  and  the  upper  part  of 
his  arm  were  the  color  of  morocco  leather 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    75 

with  blood  infusion  under  the  skin,  and 
the  shoulder  badly  broken.  He  had  been 
thrown  violently  against  something.  The 
right  arm  had  been  almost  completely 
severed  at  the  wrist,  all  tendons  were  cut 
and  the  hand  chocolate  colored  and  smell- 
ing like  rotten  meat,  which  it  was.  Three 
fingers  were  gone  from  the  other  hand  and 
a  piece  of  flesh  missing  from  the  calf  of 
his  right  leg  as  big  as  a  mutton  chop.  We 
went  over  him  in  the  theater;  the  scalp 
wound  proved  to  be  superficial  and  the 
skull  not  damaged.  The  septic  arm  had 
to  be  amputated  below  the  elbow,  as  there 
was  no  possibility  of  conservative  treat- 
ment. The  rest  of  his  wounds  were  cleaned 
and  dressed.  The  man  was  French,  a  fine 
looking  and  well-educated  fellow,  although 
a  private.  He  got  out  of  bed  and  on  to 
the  stretcher  himself  and  talked  to  us  cheer- 


^(^      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

fully,  although  he  must  have  been  in  ter- 
rible pain.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  not 
knocked  over  a  cavalry  charge,  but  he 
said,  "Non,  un  obus  seulement." 

Several  fractured  femurs  are  being  treated 
in  a  rather  peculiar  way.  A  tenpenny  nail  is 
driven  into  the  bone  and  the  leg  hung  from  the 
nail.  J.  says  it  is  the  latest  and  best  way  of 
supporting  a  fractured  limb.  It  does  not 
seem  to  hurt  the  patients,  but  it  looks  very 
queer  to  see  the  head  of  an  ordinary  nail  stick- 
ing out  of  the  flesh  with  a  string  tied  to  it. 

Dressed  the  Captain's  leg  again.  He  has 
to  be  put  under  chloroform  each  time.  The 
leg  is  wonderfully  better  and  hardly  smells 
at  all  now. 

Wednesday^  September  50; 

The  new  head  nurse — Miss  W. — is  fine. 
She  has  the  place  running  like  a  machine 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    ^^ 

now,  and  there  isn't  so  much  to  do.  After 
lunch  this  afternoon,  I  took  Jock  S.,  one  of 
the  Scots,  out  in  an  open  carriage  in  his 
kilts,  for  a  drive  through  Paris.  He  only- 
had  a  fracture  of  the  humerus  and  is  now 
convalescent.  He  has  been  brought  up  in 
a  little  country  town  in  Scotland  all  his 
life  and  had  never  been  in  a  big  city.  I 
took  him  past  the  Arc  de  Triomphe;  down 
the  Champs  Elysees;  past  the  Louvre  and 
to  Notre  Dame  and  told  him  about  Revolu- 
tionary French  history.  We  had  tea  and 
a  couple  of  large  sized  portions  of  his  na- 
tive Scotch  whiskey.  He  had  a  good  time, 
I  think.  He  kept  repeating — "Ah,  ye 
don't  know  what  this  means  to  a  bloke 
like  me.  Ah,  but  I  wish  the  missus  was 
along.  It's  the  best  afternoon  I  ever  spent 
in  my  life." 

I  had  to  run  into  Brentano's  for  a  mo- 


78      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ment  and  left  Jock  in  the  open  barouche 
outside,  on  the  Avenue  de  TOpera.  When 
I  came  out  I  found  him  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  of  at  least  fifty  people,  who  were 
all  asking  him  questions  in  both  French 
and  English.  Jock  looked  terribly  unhappy. 
When  I  got  into  the  carriage  and  we 
started  off,  he  put  his  hand  on  my  knee 
and  said,  with  a  look  of  unspeakable  relief, 
"Lord,  I  was  just  a  prayin'  for  ye  to  come." 
We  have  a  large  flock  of  visitors  now 
daily.  Every  afternoon  between  four  and 
five  o'clock  a  lot  of  philanthropic  old  ladies, 
together  with  relatives  of  the  wounded, 
arrive,  bringing  cigarettes,  chocolate,  books, 
etc.  Last  week  one  old  lady  appeared  and 
suddenly  from  under  her  cloak  produced  a 
squirt  gun,  about  two  feet  long,  loaded  with 
cologne,  and  started  around  the  ward  with 
it.     One  of  the  first  men  she  got  to  was 


3  *i 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    79 

Jock  Constable,  of  the  Black  Watch.  She 
marched  up  to  him,  held  the  nozzle  a  few 
inches  from  his  nose  and  soused  him  with 
perfume.  Jock  had  never  been  up  against 
this  sort  of  thing  before  and  didn't  quite 
know  what  to  do.  You  could  see  he  didn't 
know  whether  to  duck  or  not.  He,  never- 
theless, submitted  with  good  grace  and 
escaped  uninjured. 

Thursday,  October  i: 

Mr.  Bacon  stopped  at  the  hotel  this 
morning  and  asked  me  if  I  would  come 
with  him  to  the  American  Ambulance.  He 
has  been  using  his  own  car  as  an  ambulance 
and  has  brought  in  a  number  of  special 
cases  direct  from  the  field.  We  went  to 
Neuilly  in  his  automobile  and  he  told  me 
that  I  could  get  work  there  which  would 
offer  me  more  opportunities  than  the  Ma- 


8o      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

jestic  Hotel  Hospital.  I  said  that  anything 
which  would  get  me  near  the  front  could 
have  me.  The  American  Ambulance  is 
located  in  a  huge  new  public  school  build- 
ing. They  have  three  hundred  and  fifty 
patients  there  now,  with  immediate  capacity 
for  five  hundred,  and  an  ultimate  capacity 
for  one  thousand. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  about  ten  days  ago 
we  called  them  up  and  asked  if  they  could 
get  us  some  patients  with  their  automobiles. 
They  told  us  they  could  get  us  twenty 
wounded  which  they  were  bringing  in  from 
Villeneuve  that  night.  I  do  not  know  the 
details  of  the  case,  but  there  was  some 
inexcusable  mix-up  on  our  part.  They 
arrived  with  the  twenty  and  we  were  ready 
to  take  only  five.  This  was  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning  and  it  was  raining.  They 
had  to  take  the  rest  of  their  patients  away 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    8i 

to  put  them  anywhere  they  could.  I  was 
on  duty  that  night  and  remember  it  welL 
Their  head  ambulance  man  was  very  angry 
and  rightly  so.  I  met  him  at  the  American 
Ambulance  this  morning,  and  spoke  of  that 
night. 

He  said:  "I  am  done  with  the  Majestic. 
When  I  got  there  that  night,  you  know, 
the  first  thing  I  did  was  to  spend  fifteen 
minutes  trying  to  find  somebody  who  knew 
anything  at  all.  Finally  I  got  hold  of 
some  man  who  said  *he  thought  they  were 
to  take  some  wounded,  but  that  the  only 
man  who  knew  was  the  chief  surgeon.'  I 
was  then  shown  in  my  street  clothes  into 
the  operating  room,  where  the  chief  surgeon 
was  at  work  on  a  patient  who  was  lying  on 
the  table  with  his  brain  exposed.  As  I  w^ 
getting  ready  to  leave,  some  dub  came  out 
who  said  that  we  had  given  them  four  pa- 


82      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

tients  and  not  five  and  wanted  me  to  come 
into  the  ward  and  count  them.  I  think  he 
was  drunk."  (That  was  N.  and  he  wasn't 
drunk.) 

Nevertheless,  he  is  more  or  less  right  in 
what  he  says.  That  mix-up  was  inexcus- 
able and  was  entirely  due  to  G.  not  having 
organized  the  hospital.  J.  and  W.  are  not 
supposed  to  be  organizers.  They  were 
brought  there  to  operate  and  have  been 
busy  doing  it  all  the  time. 

Well,  the  place  is  all  right  now,  and 
there  will  never  be  anything  like  that 
again. 

Mr.  Bacon  introduced  me  to  Dr.  De 
Bouchet,  the  head  of  the  Ambulance,  and 
Dr.  Gross,  the  chief  medical  man.  They 
told  me  that  they  would  put  me  in  the 
Ambulance  Corps  if  I  wanted  to  come. 
They  are  about  to  take  on  five  more  Ford 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    83 

Ambulances,  to  operate  from  various  bases, 
twenty  miles  or  so  from  Paris.  This  is 
more  like  the  work  I  have  been  wishing  to 
do.  Another  proposition,  which  seems  even 
better,  Mr.  Bacon  spoke  of  to-day:  It 
seems  that  there  is  being  organized  at  this 
moment,  an  ambulance  service  to  operate 
in  direct  conjunction  with  the  British  and 
French  armies  in  the  field.  This  is  being 
run  by  Mr.  Harjes,  of  Morgan,  Harjes  & 
Co.  Of  course,  it  is  exactly  what  I  want 
and  Mr.  Bacon  will  get  me  into  it,  if  he 
can. 

Back  to  the  hospital  in  time  to  serve 
the  patients'  lunch. 

Went  out  for  a  walk  at  five  and  upon 
returning,  find  a  note  from  Mrs.  Harjes 
asking  me  to  call  upon  her  to-night  to  talk 
over  going  to  the  front  with  their  Am- 
bulance Service  and  Field  Hospital.     "Am- 


84      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

bulance  Mobile  de  Premiers   Secours,"   as 
it  is  called. 

Friday,  October  2: 

I  called  upon  Mrs.  Harjes  this  morning, 
who  tells  me  that  they  have  definite  au- 
thority to  work  as  they  had  planned.  They 
already  have  a  half  dozen  automobiles, 
nearly  all  their  equipment,  two  operating 
surgeons  in  Paris,  and  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan 
of  New  York  has  cabled  them  that  he  has 
sent  over  four  more.  They  are  now  on  the 
ocean. 

Dr.  W.,  an  American,  is  their  chief 
surgeon,  and  I  had  a  half  hour's  talk  with 
him.  He  says  that  the  thing  is  absolutely 
settled  and  that  we  are  going  to  start  just 
as  quickly  as  we  can  get  all  our  equipment 
together.  We  shall  probably  leave  Sunday 
afternoon. 


MAJESTIC  HOTEL  HOSPITAL,  PARIS    85 

The  idea  is  to  follow  up  the  lines  of 
battle,  get  the  wounded  men  off  the  field 
and  bring  them  to  a  point  as  close  to  the 
rear  as  we  deem  safe,  where  we  will  give 
them  first  aid  and  send  them  on.  He  has 
accepted  my  offer  to  help  in  this  work  and 
this  diary  will  stop  here  for  the  time  being. 

Note:  The  subsequent  writing  was  not  commenced 
until  three  weeks  later. 


PART  III 


HARJES  AMBULANCE   CORPS  AT 
RICQUEBOURG 

October  g: 

W\  left  Paris  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  in  two  automobiles,  the 
party  consisting  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harjes,  the 
chief  surgeon,  the  head  nurse,  R.  and  his 
chauffeur,  and  a  French  caporal  who  is  to 
represent  the  army  and  keep  military  rec- 
ords, etc.  We  all  have  uniforms  something 
like  the  English,  and  good  warm  overcoats. 

We    had    all    the    necessary    papers    and 

authority,  and  the  purpose  of  the  trip  was 

to  find  a   suitable  place  to  locate  for  the 

time  being. 

We  first  went  to  Compiegne.     It  was  a 

clear,  crisp  morning.     The  little  town  was 
89 


90      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

jammed  with  British  and  French  troops. 
Automobiles  were  tearing  about  the  streets. 
Everything  and  everybody  was  at  high 
tension  and  the  atmosphere  was  charged 
with  excitement.  Twenty  minutes  by  mo- 
tor, would  take  us  into  the  German  lines. 
An  aeroplane  was  heading  directly  at  us. 
"Is  it  a  taube?"  everyone  was  asking. 
"No,  it  is  English,"  was  presently  an- 
nounced, and  we  found  ourselves  cheering 
the  aviator  with  the  crowd. 

We  were  informed  that  the  local  am- 
bulance was  of  sufficient  capacity  and  no 
help  was  needed.  We  went  to  Pierrefonds 
and  a  couple  of  other  places,  with  the  same 
result.  The  next  stop  was  at  a  place  called 
Ricquebourg,  which  was  close  to  the  firing. 
There  was  a  concealed  French  battery  on 
the  hill,  not  more  than  three  hundred  yards 
from  the  automobile,  which  suddenly  fired 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS        91 

a  dozen  shells  at  the  Germans.  We  waited 
in  terror  for  their  reply,  but  nothing  came. 

There  was  an  ambulance  located  In  a 
chateau  nearby,  but  It  seemed  too  close  to 
the  line  of  battle  for  comfort  or  wisdom, 
so  we  turned  back  and  went  to  a  couple  of 
other  small  towns.  At  one  of  these  places 
was  a  General  B.,  the  medical  head  of  the 
Red  Cross  Division,  whose  territory  we 
were  In.  We  asked  him  if  he  could  put  us 
anywhere,  and  he  said  that  Ricquebourg, 
the  place  we  had  just  left,  would  be  a  good 
base;  that,  although  close  to  the  front, 
the  French  positions  were  very  strong,  and 
we  would  have  plenty  of  time  to  evacuate 
should  the  Germans  advance. 

We,  therefore,  turned  around  and  went 
back  to  Ricquebourg  accompanied  by  the 
old  general  in  his  automobile.  The  French 
ambulance  in  the  chateau   had  practically 


92      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

nothing  to  work  with.  They  had  neither 
cotton  nor  gauze,  and  were  using  strips  of 
the  chateau's  sheets  for  bandages.  All  of 
their  equipment  was  promptly  packed  into 
two  dress  suit  cases  and  they  were  moved  out; 
we  taking  their  place.  The  head  nurse  and 
I  were  left  on  the  premises  to  get  things 
ready. 

The  waste  of  war  was  forcibly  illustrated 
on  our  way  from  Paris  to  Compiegne.  All 
along  the  road  were  evidences  of  the  great 
battle  of  the  Marne,  which  had  just  taken 
place.  Automobile  trucks  smashed  to  pieces, 
automobile  trucks  burnt,  supply  wagons 
broken  down,  dead  horses,  parts  of  equip- 
ment, trees  cut  down  and  shot  down,  vil- 
lages burnt;  devastation  everywhere. 

The  Germans  had  no  time  to  save  any- 
thing that  went  wrong.  If  one  of  their 
automobiles  got  out  of  order,  they  simply 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS        93 

took  it  to  the  side  of  the  road  and  touched 
a  match  to  it,  so  the  French  would  not  get 
it.  Senlis  was  almost  leveled  to  the  ground, 
many  blocks  of  houses  had  been  syste- 
matically destroyed,  blown  up  and  burnt. 
The  story  is  that  the  Mayor  of  Senlis  when 
asked  to  pay  an  enormous  ransom  to  the 
Germans,  refused  to  do  so,  at  which  the 
Germans  took  him  out,  forcibly  made  him 
dig  his  own  grave,  and  then  stood  him  in 
it,  and  shot  him  in  the  presence  of  his  wife 
and  children.  Senlis  is  about  twenty-two 
miles  from  Paris. 

Our  chateau  at  Ricquebourg  is  a  most 
beautiful  place.  It  belongs  to  the  Vicomte 
de  Labry,  who  is  now  in  the  Army.  His 
wife  ran  away  when  the  Germans  came 
through  the  first  time,  and  the  chateau 
was  then  requisitioned  by  the  Government 
as  a  hospital. 


94      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

It  was  originally  built  on  piles  in  the 
manner  of  the  chateau  at  Chantilly,  and 
is  still  surrounded  by  the  moat  which  has 
been  turned  into  a  beautiful  pond,  with 
swans  and  old  fat  carp.  The  place  is  thor- 
oughly fitted  out  with  modern  improve- 
ments, and  the  grounds  are  very  extensive 
and  well  kept. 

We  sat  down  to  supper,  with  the  officers, 
in  the  beautiful  old  dining-room  amid  the 
roar  of  cannon,  the  brilliant  French  uni- 
forms, the  old  silver  and  candles  and  ma- 
hogany. I  felt  as  if  I  were  living  in  a 
Meissonier  picture. 

The  excitement  and  kaleidoscopic  change 
of  scene  that  we  had  been  through  during 
the  day,  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  sleep; 
so  at  2  A.  M.,  I  gave  it  up  and  went 
down  stairs  and  talked  to  the  two  sen- 
tries. 


(U 

6 
o 


3    (1> 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS        95 

October  10: 

The  head  nurse  and  I  spent  the  morning 
fixing  up  the  place  for  a  hospital.  We  had 
six  French  soldiers  to  help  us,  and  the  three 
men  servants  of  the  house.  We  moved 
everything  out  of  the  four  large  rooms  on 
the  first  floor,  which  we  wanted  for  wards, 
and  stored  the  furniture  on  the  third  floor. 
The  curtains  were  taken  down,  the  walls 
draped  with  sheets,  etc.  We  had  a  busy 
day  of  it,  and  our  French  soldiers  were  a 
stupid,  lazy  lot. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  three  of 
our  ambulances  came  up  bringing  two  other 
nurses,  and  a  great  deal  of  material.  This 
was  unloaded  and  stored  away;  the  am- 
bulances returning  to  Paris  with  the  chauf- 
feurs, leaving  the  two  nurses. 

By  six  o'clock  we  had  finished,  and  one 
of  the  French  officers  asked  us  if  we  would 


96      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

like  to  see  some  of  the  German  shells  burst- 
ing. We  all  said  we  should,  and  went  out 
along  the  road  with  him  for  about  a  mile 
and  a  half,  where  cutting  into  the  fields, 
we  ascended  a  long  sloping  hill  with  a  small 
patch  of  woods  on  the  top. 

The  officer  said  we  should  be  able  to 
see  the  position  of  the  French  batteries 
half  a  mile  away,  where  the  German 
shells  were  bursting,  as  soon  as  we  had 
reached  the  crest  of  the  hill.  We  had 
just  crossed  the  summit  when  suddenly  he 
exclaimed:  "Listen,  here  comes  one  now!" 
We  held  our  breath  and  waited  to  see  our 
first  German  shell.  There  was  a  sound 
like  the  roar  of  an  express  train,  coming 
nearer  at  tremendous  speed,  with  a  loud 
singing,  wailing  noise.  It  kept  coming  and 
coming  and  I  wondered  when  it  would 
ever  burst.    Then  when  it  seemed  right  on 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS        97 

top  of  us,  it  did,  with  a  shattering  crash 
that  made  the  earth  tremble.  It  was  ter- 
rible. The  concussion  felt  like  a  blow  in 
the  face,  the  stomach  and  all  over;  it  was 
like  being  struck  unexpectedly  by  a  huge 
wave  in  the  ocean.  It  exploded  about 
two  hundred  yards  from  where  we  were 
standing,  tearing  a  hole  in  the  ground  as 
big  as  a  small  room.  That  was  close 
enough  for  me;  I  thought  of  the  wounds 
I  had  seen  at  the  Majestic;  of  my  home 
and  mother,  the  girl  I  left  behind  me,  and 
everything  else.  The  officer  said  it  was 
from  one  of  their  202  m.m.  guns  (eight 
inches)  and  that  it  had  been  fired  from  a 
distance  of  about  ten  kilometers.* 

*  When  shells  come  from  a  long  distance,  as  these 
did,  they  lose  some  of  their  spin  and  steadiness  of 
flight  and  begin  to  turn  on  their  long  axis.  The  re- 
sult is  a  very  curious  sound,  wow — wow — wow — wow, 
which  increases  in  intensity  as  the  shell  comes  nearer. 

At  short  ranges,  the  shell  travels  faster  than  sound; 


98      THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

I  said,  "Suppose  they  send  the  next 
one  a  little  wide — it  might  come  right  on 
top  of  us." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "but  it  is  not  likely; 
they  don't  often  put  them  over  this  way." 

While  we  were  talking,  another  one 
came  in  about  the  same  spot.  It  nearly 
took  us  off  our  feet.  I  looked  at  the  officer. 
Nobody  was  smiling  now. 

"Look  here,"  I  said,  "let's  get  out  of 
this."    And  we  got. 

October  ii: 

We  completed  the  work  of  installing  our 
equipment.  M.,  one  of  the  nurses  who 
came  last  night,   is   a  good  executive;   she 

but  at  long  ranges,  when  it  has  lost  its  initial  velocity, 
the  noise  of  an  approaching  shell  is  audible  for  several 
seconds  before  it  arrives.  This  has  enabled  many  men 
to  save  their  lives.  The  force  of  these  big  shells  is 
tremendous;  there  are  several  instances  of  death  caused 
by  concussion  alone. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS        99 

knows  how  to  give  orders  to  those  slipshod 
French  soldiers,  and  gets  lots  of  work  out 
of  them. 

At  2  P.  M.  all  the  rest  of  the  party  arrived 
with  nearly  everything  that  we  possessed. 
J.  and  DeQ.  also  came  from  the  Majestic, 
as  I  had  arranged  for  them  to  come  and 
help  us  out  during  the  first  week. 

We  unloaded  the  ambulances  and  had 
supper.  As  we  were  finishing,  a  general 
artillery  and  infantry  battle  began  on  the 
hill  two  miles  away.  There  was  incessant 
firing  of  cannon  and  rattle  of  small  arms. 
As  soon  as  we  had  finished,  the  French 
officers  came  up  and  asked  if  we  wanted  to 
see  some  of  it.  All  the  new  men  were, 
of  course,  crazy  to  get  there.  They  all 
wanted  to  "see  some  action."  It  was 
almost  dark,  but  off  we  started. 

We  walked  for  a  long  way   closer   and 


loo    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

closer  toward  the  firing;  it  was  through  a 
narrow  road  in  the  woods,  and  as  dark  as 
a  pocket.  I  asked  the  officers  when  we 
should  get  out  of  the  woods  so  we  could 
see  something,  and  they  did  not  seem  to 
know  quite  where  we  were.  We  finally  got 
very  close  to  it.  The  officers  began  to  get 
nervous  and  suggested  that  we  had  better 
be  careful  about  sentries  as  they  did  not 
know  the  password,  and  that  if  we  were 
challenged  and  did  not  give,  it  right  off, 
we  should  be  shot  at. 

R.  and  I  were  slightly  ahead  of  the  rest, 
and  we  stopped  and  hid  in  the  bushes  by 
the  side  of  the  road.  In  a  moment  they 
had  all  come  up  and  were  about  to  pass  us, 
when  we  jumped  up  and  shouted,  "Qui 
vive?"  at  the  top  of  our  lungs. 

The  effect  was  tremendous. 

"La  France,  La  France,"  yelled  the  officers. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      loi 

"Don't  shoot,"  yelled  someone  in  Eng- 
lish. 

N.  and  G.  flung  themselves  on  the  ground 
to  escape  the  expected  fusillade  and  the  rest 
stood  rooted  to  their  tracks.  That  sobered 
everybody  up  thoroughly,  and  we  turned 
around  and  went  home.  It  was  a  sort  of 
wild  goose  chase,  anyway;  we  had  just  been 
looking  for  trouble  and  it  was  not  our  fault 
that  we  did  not  find  it.  J.  said  that  when 
he  heard  that  "Qui  vive!"  every  particu- 
lar hair  on  his  head  stood  straight  up  on 
end. 

October  12: 

Six  wounded  soldiers,  our  first  patients, 
were  brought  in  at  about  10  o'clock  this 
morning,  all  of  them  pretty  bad.  Every- 
thing was  ready,  and  three  of  them  needed 
operating. 


102    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

The  first  man  had  a  gunshot  wound,  the 
ball  traversing  the  front  of  the  abdomen, 
apparently  without  having  penetrated  much 
deeper  than  an  inch  below  the  skin.  There 
were  no  fractures,  the  mouths  of  both 
wounds  had  been  seared  up  with  iodine, 
but  the  man  had  been  lying  in  a  dressing 
station  in  his  clothes  for  five  days.  He 
had  a  temperature;  a  high  pulse;  had  been 
vomiting,  and  looked  bad. 

When  we  took  the  bandage  off,  W.  said: 
"Oh!  well!  I  guess  we  had  better  leave  that 
alone,  hadn't  we?" 

"My  inclination  would  be  to  open  it  up 
and  see  what  is  there,"  said  J.,  "but,  of 
course,  do  as  you  think  best." 

"All  right,"  replied  W.,  "it  won't  do  any 
harm." 

W.  took  the  knife  and  started  to  cut  across 
the   body,   cutting  with   the   blade  of   the 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      103 

knife  upward  and  upon  a  guide.  After  he 
had  been  at  work  two  minutes,  he  had  gone 
about  two  inches. 

J.  said,  "I  think  that  incision  ought  to  be 
carried  about  six  inches  further  this  way. 
Just  give  me  that  knife  a  moment,  will  you, 
old  chap?" 

He  took  the  knife  and  from  that  moment 
conducted  the  operation  himself.  The  min- 
ute we  got  the  abdomen  open,  it  was  quite 
plain  that  J.  had  been  right.  The  large 
intestine  had  been  perforated  in  several 
places,  and  the  entire  inside  of  the  man  was 
chock  full  of  fecal  matter,  rotten  blood, 
and  pus.  "For  Heaven's  sake,  light  a  cigar, 
Toland,"  said  J. 

We  took  all  the  intestines  out  and  put 
them  in  a  basin  wrapped  in  hot  towels  and 
did  what  we  could;  washing  and  cleaning 
out  everything  inside  of  him,  but  J.  says 


104     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

that  he  has  been  too  long  without  attention 
to  have  much  chance. 

The  next  man  was  a  German  officer — a 
Prussian  who  had  been  hit  below  the  knee 
by  a  piece  of  a  shrapnel  casing.  He  had 
been  between  the  lines,  and  had  lain  on 
the  battlefield  for  seven  days  without  food 
and  water.  How  they  stand  it,  I  cannot 
see.  The  leg  was,  of  course,  beyond  hope 
of  repair;  the  bone  was  smashed  to  pieces 
four  inches  below  the  knee;  the  leg  nearly 
off  and  turned  out  at  an  angle  of  15°  and 
so  rotten  that  it  was  black.  W.  was  busy, 
so  J.  had  me  give  him  the  anaesthetic.  It 
was  the  first  one  I  had  ever  given,  but 
with  J.  there  to  tell  me  what  to  do  if  any- 
thing happened,  I  felt  quite  confident; 
giving  a  chloroform  anaesthetic  and  watch- 
ing the  condition  of  the  patient  is  not  a 
difficult  thing  to  do. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      105 

October  Jj; 

We  now  have  about  as  many  patients  as  we 
can  hold,  mostly  colored  troops  from  Sene- 
gal. I  was  on  night  duty  last  night.  At 
about  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  just  as 
it  was  beginning  to  turn  dawn,  a  little 
French  caporal  came  in  to  the  chateau, 
and  said  that  there  were  some  wounded 
outside  for  us.  I  supposed  they  would  be 
brought  in  in  the  usual  way — on  stretchers 
— and  started  around  the  wards  to  see  that 
everything  was  all  right. 

I  suddenly  had  a  feeling  that  somebody 
was  looking  at  me.  I  wheeled  around  and 
there  was  an  enormous  black  man,  stand- 
ing on  one  leg  by  the  side  of  the  door, 
staring  at  me.  I  did  not  know  whether  he 
spoke  French  or  Swahali,  but  upon  address- 
ing him  in  the  former  language  I  found  he 
was  pretty  good  at  it.     I  went  to  the  door. 


io6    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

There  was  a  heavy  fog  hanging  over  the 
place  and  through  the  gloom  of  the  early 
October  morning,  I  saw  two  of  the  old 
fashioned  beet  carts  with  their  huge  wheels 
and  long  bodies.  From  these,  men  wertb 
climbing  down.  No  waiting  to  be  carried 
for  these  fellows!  Two  of  them  were  com- 
ing up  the  stone  steps  on  their  hands  and 
knees;  another  was  crawling  on  his  hands 
and  knees  along  the  gravel  walk;  several 
were  walking;  and  a  couple  hopping  on  one 
leg. 

Most  of  them  had  bad  wounds,  and  one 
was  still  bleeding  freely  from  the  shoulder. 
There  were  forty-one  all  told,  and  they  all 
had  been  wounded  in  the  night  attack  which 
we  had  been  hearing  ever  since  midnight. 

One  of  the  first  we  attended  to,  had  a 
shrapnel  bullet  through  his  shoulder.  There 
was  no  wound  of  exit,  and,  just  as  J.  was 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      107 

starting  to  bandage  him  up  for  evacuation, 
he  said,  "Hello,  here  is  the  bullet,  right 
here."  He  put  my  finger  on  a  spot  on  the 
man's  arm.  There  was  an  imperceptible 
little  bump,  but  he  said  that  it  was  the 
bullet,  and  very  close  under  the  skin,  too. 
"I'll  get  that  out  right  now,"  he  said,  and 
took  his  knife  and,  without  giving  the  man 
either  a  local  or  general  anaesthetic,  made 
a  two-inch  incision. 

"Oh,  la,  la,"  shouted  the  blackamoor, 
"mais  qu'est-ce  que  tu  fais.f*" 

"Restez  tranquil,  Monsieur;  je  vais  oter 
la  balle,"  replied  JoU,  with  a  grand  gesture 
and  magnificent  accent. 

"C'est  bien,"  he  answered,  "allez  done." 

JoU  cut  a  little  more,  put  in  a  probe  and 
out  came  the  ball — a  couple  of  stitches,  and 
it  was  all  over  in  certainly  less  than  twenty 
seconds.     These  fellows   have  good  nerve; 


io8     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

the  man  never  budged  after  the  first 
start. 

They  tell  me  that  the  Senegalis  charged 
here  with  the  bayonet  last  week,  and  when 
they  had  their  hands  shot  off,  they  kept  on 
and  bit  the  Germans  with  their  teeth. 
There  is  a  story  that  at  Montereau  some 
time  past,  a  Senegali  was  brought  in 
wounded.  When  they  undressed  him,  he 
had  something  large  under  his  coat  which 
he  was  hiding;  he  did  not  want  to  take  it 
out,  it  was  a  little  souvenir  he  had  got  from 
the  battlefield — a  German's  helmet,  and 
the  head  of  the  German  was  inside  it!  Some 
of  them  have  also  collected  strings  of  Ger- 
mans' ears. 

The  French  boys  who  work  in  the  cha- 
teau are  perfectly  hopeless;  they  are  willing 
enough,  but  too  simple  to  do  any  real 
work.    One  of  them  filled  the  kerosene  lamp 


y.  o 


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c-i^  S 


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O   C   aj 

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c«    3    «-• 

o  o  a; 


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°    S    ^ 


o 

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-  <u 


C   1^ 


Caj  J3  -^"  "T^ 
_—    to  *^ 

S  ?i  S  5  ^ 

.5    X   J-i    rt    rt 
I  =  ^  ^•- 


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(U    0) 


«   •    ^»  • 


:*:*  i 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      109 

with  gasoline  the  other  night  and  lighted  it. 
I  arrived  just  in  time  to  save  the  house 
from  catching  fire.  You  start  them  on  one 
job  and  ten  minutes  afterwards  they  have 
dropped  it  and  are  doing  something  else  or 
nothing  else.  We  have  no  organization  or 
system.  Our  material  is  not  classified  and 
nobody  knows  where  anything  is.  It  is  very 
annoying  and  makes  a  great  deal  of  un- 
necessary work.  Besides  that,  nobody  has 
had  any  definite  work  assigned  to  him, 
no  instructions  are  given  to  anyone,  and 
the  place  is  in  a  chaotic  state. 

I  was  on  night  duty  to-night  again  with 
S.  and  had  a  terrible  time.  The  place  was 
packed  with  men,  and  six  nurses  with  four 
orderlies  would  not  have  been  too  many. 
Four  men  were  dying — one  delirious  and 
yelling  at  the  top  of  his  lungs.  It  was 
ghastly.      I    know   that   neither   of   us    sat 


no    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

down  for  more  than  ten  minutes  the  whole 
night.  It  was  a  continual  run  from  begin- 
ning to  end.  The  supplies  not  being  sorted 
out  and  arranged,  made  it  twice  as  bad. 
Nothing  could  be  found  when  it  was  needed. 
No  kerosene,  not  enough  candles,  no  mack- 
intosh. The  morphine  could  not  be  found 
at  all.  The  furnace  fire  went  out  and  I  had 
to  go  down  and  rebuild  it.  The  kitchen 
stove  fire  went  out  and  I  had  to  rebuild  it, 
too.  We  had  about  ten  men  who  were 
out  of  their  heads,  and  who  should  have 
been  watched.  There  were  men  all  over 
the  house,  in  the  first,  second  and  third 
stories;  five  out  of  ten  men  had  dysentery, 
so  it  can  be  imagined  what  it  was  like. 
One  French  soldier  died  during  the  night; 
he  did  not  have  any  chance,  it  was  an 
abdominal  wound  which  had  gone  through 
everything.      He    was    quite    conscious    all 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS       in 

the  time  and  before  he  died,  called  me  to 
him,  and  gave  me  some  little  messages  for 
his  wife.  He  was  only  about  twenty-four. 
Another  head  case  died  at  7  in  the  morning 
and  two  more  will  probably  die  during  the 
day.  The  head  case  that  died  had  oral 
aphasia;  he  could  understand  what  you 
said  to  him,  but  could  not  talk  himself. 
He  tried  hard  enough,  but  the  words  meant 
nothing.    He  could  only  talk  gibberish. 

We  cannot  have  another  night  like  that. 
It  is  not  right.  We  have  got  to  do  one  of 
two  things — get  all  the  patients  on  one 
floor,  or  else  have  three  divisions  of  nurses 
and  orderlies,  one  for  each  of  the  three 
floors.  I  got  to  bed  at  noon  and  slept  till 
five  o'clock. 

When  I  came  down  stairs  I  was  met  in 
the  hall  by  the  little  French  priest. 

"Oh,  Monsieur,"  he  said,  "there  are  six 


112    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

poor  Germans  out  there  in  a  little  outhouse, 
and,  oh.  Monsieur,  they  are  so  cold,  and 
cannot  you  have  a  fire  made  for  them,  or 
do  something  for  them?" 

I  said  that  I  did  not  know  that  there 
were  any  Germans  in  the  place,  and  asked 
when  they  had  been  brought  there.  He 
said  he  thought  they  had  been  there  a 
couple  of  hours. 

I  asked:  "Has  nothing  been  done  for 
them.?    Is  nobody  down  there.'*" 

"No,"  he  replied,  "and,  oh.  Monsieur,  it 
is  so  damp  and  cold  and  they  are  suffering  ter- 
ribly, please  have  something  done  for  them!" 

I  went  into  the  operating  room,  and  there 
was  W.  with  the  six  new  surgeons  who  had 
just  arrived,  watching  J.  operate. 

"Doctor,"  I  said,  "the  priest  tells  me 
that  there  are  some  Germans  down  in  the 
barn  who  need  attention." 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      113 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "that's  so." 

"Well,"  I  continued,  "the  priest  says 
they  are  very  cold  and  that  there  is  nobody 
there." 

"That  is  right,"  he  replied,  "I  guess  there 
isn't.  Well,  you  just  go  down  there  and 
fix  them  up  and  superintend  all  that,  won't 
you?" 

"I  didn't  know  they  were  there  until  five 
minutes  ago;"  I  said,  "what  do  you  want 
done — are  you  going  to  keep  them  there 
all  night,  or  move  them  up  to  the  house?" 

"Oh,  well,"  he  answered,  "I  can't  quite 
tell  about  that  yet,  but  you  just  go  down 
and  do  what  you  can." 

I  went  down  to  the  stables,  and  there 
were  the  six  poor  devils  lying  on  stretchers. 
It  was  a  little  one-story  stone  house,  with 
no  floor,  so  they  were  on  the  ground. 
There  was  a  cold  drizzling  rain  falling  and 


114    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

moisture  had  collected  all  over  the  walls. 
The  place  was  damp  and  clammy  as  a 
sewer.  The  next  room  had  an  old  broken 
stove  in  it,  and  was  chock  full  of  furniture 
and  rubbish.  I  did  not  even  know  whether 
the  stove  would  burn.  I  went  back  to  the 
operating  room  and  said,  "Doctor,  I  will 
have  to  have  two  or  three  men  to  help  me 
do  that  work,  or  I  won't  get  it  done  for 
two  hours."  All  of  the  four  new  aides 
immediately  volunteered  to  help. 

We  cleaned  the  room  out,  swept  the  floor, 
hunted  about  until  we  found  some  kindling 
and  coal,  and  finally  got  the  fire  going.  In 
the  meantime,  those  Germans  were  lying 
on  the  ground  with  practically  no  clothes 
on;  two  of  them  had  their  legs  entirely 
bare  as  their  trousers  had  been  cut  off  when 
the  wounds  had  been  dressed.  They  were 
in  a  bad  way  from  the  cold,   apart  from 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      115 

their  wounds.  I  got  a  dozen  empty  claret 
bottles,  filled  them  with  hot  water  and  sent 
up  for  hot  bouillon  and  blankets. 

One  of  the  new  men  is  Neil  Stevens, 
Yale  '11  of  Morristown,  N.  J.,  who  was 
with  me  at  St.  Paul's  School.  We  were  so 
busy  working,  that  we  did  not  recognize 
each  other  for  fifteen  minutes.  The  other 
aides  are  Edwin  Pyle,  Williams  '11,  of  New 
York,  Benjamin  R.  Allison,  Dartmouth  '11, 
of  New  York,  and  Mather  Cleveland, 
Yale  '11,  of  Denver. 

The  idea  in  putting  the  Germans  down 
there  was  from  the  little  French  General  B., 
who  said  that  all  septic  cases  must  be  con- 
fined to  a  separate  building. 

We  have  not  sufficient  staff  to  give  those 
Germans  any  attention  where  they  are  now, 
and  putting  them  there  is  quite  unneces- 
sary.   All  French  hospitals  put  septic  cases 


ii6    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

in  with  their  other  patients.  The  poor 
Germans  are  a  pathetic  lot — two  of  them, 
boys  of  about  seventeen. 

I  took  two  big  heavy  blankets  and 
wrapped  them  round  the  bare  legs  of  one 
of  the  men.  He  took  my  hand  and  kissed 
it! 

One  of  the  lads  in  the  chateau  here  told 
me  that  when  the  Germans  were  in  it  a 
month  ago,  the  men  slept  on  the  kitchen 
floor.  When  the  officer  came  to  wake  them 
up,  he  just  walked  in  and  kicked  them. 

The  woman  working  here  said  that  when 
Von  Kluck's  army  marched  along  the  road 
in  front  of  the  chateau,  which  they  did 
for  fourteen  hours,  an  officer  walked  be- 
hind the  lines  and  hit  the  men  on  the  heads 
with  a  little  stick  if  they  were  out  of  line. 
One  fellow  had  gotten  out  of  step.  A  close- 
cropped  officer  ran  up  and  spat  in  his  face. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      117 

Poor  fellows,  they  are  like  a  lot  of  ill- 
treated  animals,  not  knowing  whether  to 
expect  a  kind  word  or  a  kick. 

Our  organization  or  lack  of  organization 
is  shocking.  Generally  speaking,  no  in- 
structions come  from  the  chief  surgeon  or 
head  nurse  about  anything.  There  is  no 
regular  assignment  of  duties  to  anyone 
except  the  chauffeurs,  of  whom  R.  is  in 
charge. 

In  the  medical  department  we  need  one 
or  two  first-class  operating  surgeons,  and 
four  extra  nurses  to  do  this  work.  There 
is  no  history  of  our  work,  or  our  diagnoses, 
sent  on  with  the  patients  to  permanent 
hospitals.  This  is  unbusiness  like,  and  the 
information  which  we  have  gathered  is 
wasted. 

In  the  cuisine,  the  meals  are  irregular 
and  a  la  carte;  that  is,  people  come  down 


ii8    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

at  any  old  time  and  order  any  old  thing 
they  want;  there  is  much  unnecessary 
work,  due  to  lack  of  uniform  practice. 
The  chef  has  no  help  and  works  from  6  A.  M. 
to  II  P.  M.  He  has  the  French  boys,  but 
they  are  hardly  any  use. 

In  the  transportation  department  there 
has  been  no  work  done  in  planning  the 
routine  for  breaking  and  making  camps. 
This  is  of  vital  importance.  If  we  were 
to  be  told  to-night  that  the  Germans  were 
coming  in  three  hours,  the  only  things  we 
could  get  out  of  the  hospital,  would  be 
the  automobiles  and  the  personnel  of  the 
staff;  every  bit  of  our  equipment  would 
have  to  be  left  behind. 

They  have  got  a  French  battery  on  the 
hill  behind  us  now,  which  sends  shells  al- 
most over  the  roof.  We  are  within  easy 
range  of  the  German  cannon.  I  think  the 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      119 

place  is  getting  too  hot  to  hold  us.  Last 
night  when  they  were  shooting,  a  candle 
fell  off  the  table.  The  house  often  shakes, 
so  that  it  seems  impossible  for  the  windows 
not  to  break,  but  none  has  as  yet. 

October  i^: 

J.  and  I  took  a  short  walk  this  morning 
after  dressings  and  saw  a  German  aero- 
plane being  fired  on  by  the  French  batteries. 
It  was  about  two  miles  from  us.  The  Ger- 
man aeroplane  flew  over  the  French  lines 
and  dropped  three  smoke  bombs  about  a 
hundred  yards  apart.  They  explode  quite 
high  in  the  air,  leaving  a  trail  of  smoke. 
This  gives  the  German  artillery  their  line 
of  fire.  The  last  bomb  had  hardly  dropped, 
when  the  French  batteries  opened  on  it. 
We  could  see  the  shrapnel  shells  of  the 
batteries   explode   near   the   aeroplane   dis- 


I20    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

tinctly.  They  leave  little  puffs  of  smoke, 
which  remain  hanging  in  the  air.  I  don't 
believe  they  came  very  close  to  it,  though. 
The  aeroplane  was  not  hit,  and  continued 
on.     It  was  quite  high  up. 

DeQuelen,  who  is  a  Frenchman,  had  an 
adventure  in  the  ambulance  last  night. 
They  were  stopped  by  a  sentry.  He  said: 
"In  my  best  French,  I  was  unable  to  satisfy 
him  with  my  pronunciation  of  the  password. 
He  said  that  I  spoke  with  a  German  accent. 
Both  of  them  immediately  pointed  their 
guns  at  us  full  cock,  and  it  was  only  by 
my  thorough  knowledge  of  French  cursing 
that  I  was  able  to  convince  him  of  my  na- 
tionality." This  is  a  bit  dangerous  as 
some  of  these  fellows  are  pretty  quick  on 
the  trigger.  There  have  been  lots  of  people 
shot  by  sentries  in  England. 

These    French    territorial    sentries    are   a 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      121 

dumb  lot;  when  I  was  at  Montdidier,  an 
officious  old  boy,  who  had  evidently  just 
been  put  on,  halted  me.  I  gave  him  the 
"Mot,"  but  he  had  to  see  my  "Carte 
d'identite"  too.  He  scowled  at  the  photo- 
graph, scowled  at  me;  looked  back  and 
forth  comparing  my  face  with  that  of  the 
photograph    and    at   last   said    suspiciously, 

"You  were  younger  when  that  was 
taken.?" 

"No,  sir,"  I  replied,  "I  was  older." 

"Bien  passez!"  he  grunted. 

The  Ambassador  of  the  United  States, 
Mr.  Herrick,  came  out  to  pay  us  a  visit 
this  afternoon.  It  just  happened  that  the 
old  General  B.  arrived  at  the  same  moment, 
and  we  asked  him  whether  the  Germans 
could  not  be  moved  from  the  little  out- 
house, up  to  the  chateau.  Yes,  you  bet 
they  could  be  moved;  and  there  was  noth- 


122    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ing  the  old  boy  would  not  have  done  for 
us  while  Mr.  Herrick  was  there. 

When  we  brought  the  Germans  into  the 
chateau,  there  was  an  unexpected  scene; 
a  couple  of  blackamoors  almost  sprang 
from  their  beds.  The  sight  of  the  Germans 
put  them  in  a  frenzy  of  excitement  and  they 
commenced  jabbering  at  each  other  in  their 
native  language,  with  their  eyes  almost 
popping  out  of  their  heads.  I  guess  a 
couple  of  them  would  have  been  out  of 
bed  and  at  the  Germans,  if  we  had  left 
the  room.  They  cannot  understand  why, 
if  they  can  kill  the  Germans  on  the  battle- 
field, it  is  not  all  right  to  go  for  them, 
when  you  have  them  in  the  same  room  and 
down  on  the  floor.  After  an  hour,  we 
thought  it  best  to  move  the  Germans  into 
another  room.  To  say  that  they  felt  re- 
lieved, is  putting  it  mildly. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      123 

Fifteen  patients  were  evacuated  to  Com- 
piegne  today  and  four  died  during  the 
night.  It  seems  to  me  that  some  of  those 
fellows  we  evacuated  were  pretty  sick  men. 

October  16: 

Neil  Stevens  and  I  got  together  and 
drew  up  an  organization  chart  this  morning 
and  made  out  a  schedule  showing  details 
of  regular  routine:  meal  hours,  dressings, 
day  and  night  shifts,  etc.  We  showed  it 
to  the  chief  surgeon,  who  approved  it.  We 
may  have  a  little  regularity  at  last. 

We  are  pretty  full  now  and  this  morning 
we  had  to  move  the  old  Prussian  officer, 
to  whom  I  gave  the  anaesthetic,  from  the 
second  floor  down  to  the  first  floor.  We 
thought  he  would  like  to  go  in  with  some 
of  his  own  German  soldiers,  and  accordingly 
took  him  into  the  ward  where  there  were 


124    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

six  of  them.  When  he  saw  where  he  was 
going,  he  said  in  French, 

"What  are  you  bringing  me  in  here  for?" 

I  said,  "We  thought  you  would  like  to 
see  some  of  your  comrades  from  the  Vater- 
land." 

"H'm,"  he  muttered,  "I  would  rather 
have  stayed  where  I  was." 

He  thereupon  turned  his  back  upon  his 
own  men,  refusing  even  to  speak  to  them. 
An  hour  or  two  later,  he  called  the  nurse 
over  to  him. 

"Come  here,"  he  said  in  a  rough  voice, 
"these  men  over  here  are  asking  a  great 
deal  too  much,  do  not  pay  so  much  atten- 
tion to  them.  They  are  imposing  on  you. 
Of  course,  if  I  ask  you  for  anything  it  is 
a  very  different  proposition,  but  these  fel- 
lows are  not  worth  it,  don't  bother  about 
them." 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      125 

One  of  the  new  surgeons  has  his  eye  in- 
fected and  it  looks  alarming.  Very  much 
swollen.  We  have  to  be  careful.  R.  will 
not  even  pick  up  the  end  of  a  stretcher 
now  without  first  hunting  up  his  gloves 
and  putting  them  on.  Everything  about 
this  place  is  infected  and  smells  of  wounded 
soldiers.  It  is  no  joke  to  have  a  cut  on 
your  hands. 

October  28: 

We  have  now  been  moved  to  Compiegne 
by  order  of  the  general  staff  and  have  been 
here  two  days. 

The  Palace  is  being  used  as  a  hospital  for 
pneumonia  and  typhoids.  All  the  bridges 
have  been  blown  up  and  we  cross  the  Oise 
on  pontoons  which  are  crowded-  with  con- 
tinuous lines  of  troops. 

Most  of  us  went  to  the  English  Church 


126    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Service  this  morning.  While  we  were  sitting 
there  a  German  aeroplane  flew  over  Com- 
piegne  and  dropped  six  bombs  on  the  town. 
One  of  them  landed  in  the  street  150  yards 
from  us.  We  think  it  was  caused  by  Cleve 
singing  tenor  to  the  hymns  1  The  Germans 
can  put  up  with  a  good  deal,  but  when  they 
heard  that,  they  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer. 
The  one  that  landed  close  to  us  was  a 
shrapnel  bomb,  and  one  other  also;  the 
rest  were  "bombes  d'incendie,"  which  fell 
in  places  where  they  did  not  cause  any 
"incendie."  There  must  be  a  good  many 
kinds  of  aeroplane  bombs.  This  one  only 
tore  a  hole  in  the  street  about  eight  inches 
deep,  and  two  feet  in  diameter.  There 
were  no  windows  broken  and  no  damage 
done  to  the  adjoining  property  worth  men- 
tioning, and  nobody  was  hurt,  although 
there  were  some  people  within  fifty  yards 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      127 

of  where  it  fell.  The  one  which  dropped  in 
the  Avenue  du  Trocadero  in  Paris,  however, 
almost  wrecked  the  entire  block;  every 
window  for  a  hundred  yards  each  side  of 
it  was  broken,  and  I  saw  stones  the  size 
of  my  little  finger  nail,  driven  an  inch  into 
a  tree,  eighty  yards  from  the  point  of  ex- 
plosion. On  the  whole,  however,  aeroplane 
bombs  are  ineffective;  they  never  hit  what 
they  are  aimed  at,  and  the  number  that 
can  be  taken  up  is  limited. 

Mrs.  Depew,  an  American  living  near  here, 
has  turned  her  chateau  into  a  field  hospital. 
It  is  beautifully  equipped. 

Compiegne  is  a  pretty  little  place  and 
while  we  were  there  the  leaves  were  all 
turning  red  and  golden;  the  air  was  crisp 
and  cool,  and  there  were  continuous  streams 
of  every  kind  of  troops  passing  through 
the  place;   in   fact,  that   is   why  we  were 


128     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

delayed  there.  The  Front  was  changing 
and  it  could  not  be  well  determined  where 
to  locate.  We  saw  aeroplanes  every  day, 
French  and  German  both.  Saw  them  fired 
on  by  batteries  of  both  sides.  The  artillery 
used  to  unlimber  and  hide  under  the  trees 
on  each  side  of  the  road  during  the  day  and 
do  their  marching  at  night — this  on  account 
of  the  German  aeroplanes  which  would  see 
them  if  they  were  moving  in  the  daytime. 


PART   IV 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS  AT 
MONTDIDIER 

November  i: 

LAST  night  Mr.  Harjes  arrived  from 
I  Paris  with  orders  for  us  to  join  the 
Fourth  Army  Corps  at  Montdidier,  where, 
we  are  told,  there  are  a  large  number  of 
wounded  to  be  looked  after. 

At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  started 
off  with  our  six  ambulances,  two  private 
cars.  Dr.  W. — a  new  surgeon, — a  new  chauf- 
feur, and  two  additional  nurses. 

We  arrived  at  our  chateau   a   couple  of 

hours  later.     It  is  in  the  country  two  miles 

from  Montdidier,  and  belongs  to  Monsieur 

Klotz,  the  present  Minister  of  Finance  of 

the  Republic.    He  does  not  live  in  it  often, 

and,  I  have  since  been  given  to  understand, 
131 


132    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

uses  it  only  as  a  sort  of  voting  residence, 
as  it  is  in  his  district.  It  is  a  shabby  old 
house,  without  modern  conveniences,  and 
none  too  clean,  especially  after  having  been 
lived  in  by  both  the  French  and  German 
soldiers  for  some  time.  We  got  our  equip- 
ment out  of  the  machines  and  distributed 
it  in  good  order. 

The  place  is  fairly  well  arranged  for  a 
hospital.  There  are  three  big  rooms,  all 
adjoining  each  other  on  the  first  floor,  with 
a  small  hall  between  them.  These  three 
large  rooms  we  will  use  as  wards;  they  will 
each  hold  about  ten  patients.  There  are 
two  other  small  rooms  leading  off  them 
which  we  will  use  as  operating  room  and 
medical  supply  room.  We  eat  in  the 
kitchen,  as  usual,  and  the  rooms  for  the 
staff  take  up  the  second  and  third  floors. 
None  of  the  staff's  rooms  are  heated,  and 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      133 

there  is  running  water  only  in  the  kitchen 
and  a  couple  of  rooms  on  the  first  floor. 
All  of  the  water  has  to  be  pumped  by  hand. 

November  2: 

This  afternoon  we  had  an  inspection  by 
the  Medecin  Chef  of  the  local  district — 
that  is,  Montdidier  and  some  ten  miles 
on  each  side.  He  seems  to  be  a  good 
executive  and  disciplinarian.  He  brought 
with  him  L.,  the  chief  surgeon  of  the  big 
hospital  at  Montdidier.  They  went  over 
everything  in  the  hospital,  and  spoke  right 
up  and  told  us  what  they  liked  and  did  not 
like,  made  a  few  suggestions,  but  said  that 
on  the  whole  our  installation  was  excep- 
tionally good. 

November  2: 

Went  to  Montdidier  this  morning  to  get 
patients  to  fill  our  hospital.     Upon  return- 


134     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

ing  after  our  first  trip  to  the  chateau,  the 
Medecin  Chef  told  us  that  all  our  ambu- 
lances would  be  needed  immediately  for 
urgent  work  on  the  field,  as  he  had  just 
received  a  message  that  there  were  over  a 
thousand  wounded  at  various  points  all 
along  the  line  between  here  and  Roye. 
All  our  automobiles  were  immediately 
brought  to  the  station,  I  driving  No.  6,  a 
Packard  30.  Here  we  received  instructions 
to  go  to  some  six  First-Aid  Stations  directly 
behind  the  trenches.  We  first  were  sent  to 
a  place  called  Fecamps.  It  was  a  little 
cluster  of  about  twenty  houses,  barns, 
etc.  .  .  .  and  there  were  some  three  hun- 
dred wounded  there,  who  had  been  and 
were  being  brought  in  from  the  trenches 
one-half  a  mile  away.  The  worst  cases 
were  lying  on  straw  in  the  small  outhouses, 
barns  and  cottages  that  the  furniture  had 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CX)RPS      135 

been  cleared  out  of.  There  were  about 
twenty  dead  already.  Two  more  were 
dying  and  there  were  several  others  with 
awful  undressed  wounds.  One  with  a  leg 
nearly  off  at  the  hip.  Another  blind  in 
both  eyes  and  his  chin  shot  away.  It  was 
too  horrible  to  enlarge  upon. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  Harjes  Am- 
bulance Corps  that  day,  they  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  up  against  it,  on  handling 
two  hundred  and  fifty  lying  down  cases. 
The  people  at  Montdidier  had  no  equip- 
ment to  speak  of,  for  handling  lying  down 
cases,  while  our  five  6-stretcher  Packards 
brought  in  thirty  on  each  trip.  If  it  had 
not  been  for  us,  half  of  their  lying  down 
cases  would  have  had  to  stay  there  over- 
night, and  half  of  those  that  stayed,  would 
surely  have  died.  It  was  very  cold.  There 
were    wounded    men    everywhere!      Every 


136    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

road  we  took,  we  would  pass  men  coming 
in  on  donkey  carts,  beet  wagons  and  every 
other  available  vehicle  in  the  surrounding 
country  that  could  be  pressed  into  service. 
Sixteen  hundred  wounded  were  sent  into 
Montdidier  that  day,  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  of  the  worst  were  brought  in  by 
us.  If  we  do  no  other  work,  to-day  justifies 
our  existence.  I  think  we  have  saved  the 
lives  of  at  least  one  hundred  men.  A  Ger- 
man aeroplane  was  directly  over  us  at  one 
place,  and  quite  low  down;  it  was  being 
fired  on  by  the  French  batteries  and  mi- 
trailleuses the  whole  time.  Some  of  the 
shells  came  very  close  to  it.  We  were  quite 
near  enough  to  see  the  flash  of  the  powder 
in  daytime.    Unfortunately  it  escaped. 

At  a  place  called  Wassy,  there  was  a 
little  church  where  we  got  a  lot  of  wounded. 
It  was  just  like  a  scene  in  a  play.     The 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      137 

pews  were  piled  up  against  the  wall  outside; 
the  whole  floor  was  covered  with  straw; 
and  the  wounded  men  were  lying  about 
everywhere;  a  little  priest  giving  the  last 
rites  to  a  dying  man  in  the  corner;  the 
place  dimly  lit  by  candles;  the  little  china 
Madonnas  standing  on  the  shelves.  The 
mud,  the  uniforms,  and  everything  else, 
was  just  as  you  would  expect  to  find  it; 
and  up  at  the  end  of  the  street  not  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  us,  was  a  company  of 
French  infantry  in  position.  In  the  after- 
noon, before  it  grew  dark,  you  could  see 
over  the  valley  where  some  French  infantry 
were  along  a  fence  three-quarters  of  a  mile 
away,  and  every  once  in  a  while  the  little 
puff  of  smoke  of  a  bursting  shrapnel  would 
appear  above  them.  It  seemed  like  a 
dream,  and  I  could  hardly  realize  that  war 
was    going   on    right   under    my    eyes    and 


138     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

that  those  men  out  there  were  doing  the 
same  thing  and  getting  the  same  wounds, 
as  the  ones  who  now  lay  in  front  of  us  on 
the  straw. 

It  was  a  big  day  at  Montdidier  station. 
The  station  itself  is  a  First-Aid  Hospital, 
and  literally  every  square  foot  of  the  plat- 
form, interior  and  all  about  it  was  packed 
with  men  on  stretchers,  while  the  other 
wounded  men  walked  and  hobbled  about, 
or  sat  on  the  curbs  waiting  for  the  trains. 
The  old  Medecin  Chef  was  right  on  the 
job  all  the  time,  and  nothing  moved  without 
his  orders.  He  had  the  whole  situation 
at  his  finger  ends.  They  tell  me  that  he 
had  every  soldier  out  of  the  station  at 
twelve  o'clock  that  night  except  about 
twelve  cases  that  transportation  undoubt- 
edly would  have  killed.  All  the  wounded 
were  sent  from  here  to  Creil,  where  they 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      139 

are  redespatched  to  permanent  hospitals 
all  over  France.  The  Medecin  Chef  says 
that  it  is  the  one  great  drawback  of  the 
system,  in  so  much  as  that  when  he  puts 
them  on  the  cars  here,  he  does  not  know 
whether  they  are  going  to  travel  for  twenty- 
four  hours  or  eighty-four  hours;  all  he  can 
do  is,  grade  the  wounded, — from  the  most 
serious  to  the  least  serious;  and  send  them 
through  with  that  information.  All  the 
hospitals  in  Montdidier,  including  ours, 
are,  of  course,  loaded  to  capacity,  and  there 
is  no  more  room  for  anyone  else  in  this 
town. 

November  6: 

There  has  been  another  big  battle  last 
night.  I  could  hear  the  guns  from  about 
quarter  to  eleven  until  after  one  continu- 
ously,— the  mitrailleuse  and  rifle  fire  were 


HO     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

as  steady  as  the  roar  of  the  ocean,  and  the 
heavier  cannon  firing  was  incessant.  Each 
shot  from  the  soixante-quinzes  costs  ten 
dollars,  and  from  the  one  hundred  and 
fifty-fives,  thirty-five  dollars! 

Steve  and  I  got  up  at  four  this  morning, 
and  reported  to  the  Medecin  Chef  at  five 
thirty,  as  per  order.  There  is  no  firing  now. 
We  are  again  sent  to  Fescamps,  but  there 
are  not  as  many  wounded  as  we  had  ex- 
pected, only  about  forty,  and  only  half  a 
dozen  of  them  serious.  The  men  said 
that  the  Germans  had  attempted  an  ad- 
vance which  was  repulsed;  and  that  they 
had  lost  heavily,  while  the  French  losses 
had  been  slight.  The  Germans,  they  said, 
got  into  the  French  barbed  wire  entangle- 
ments, where  they  stuck  and  were  shot  by 
the  French  on  one  side,  while  their  own 
artillery  dropped  shells  among  them  from 


The  Author. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      141 

the  other  side.  This  is  not  uncommon, 
many  men  of  both  sides  are  wounded  by 
their  own  shells. 

The  Medecin  Chef  kept  all  our  automo- 
biles waiting  at  the  station  all  day  long, 
in  case  he  should  receive  further  orders, 
but  the  orders  were  not  forthcoming  and 
we  did  nothing.  We  hear  that  thirty  of  the 
one  thousand  and  six  hundred  died  on  the 
trains  before  reaching  Creil.  It  is  terrible, 
but  there  was  nothing  else  to  do — every- 
thing here  is  loaded  to  capacity. 

November  8: 

Helped  with  the  dressings  this  morning. 
We  certainly  have  a  prize  collection  of  bad 
cases  here;  nineteen  out  of  twenty-three 
are  thoroid  cases,  with  half  of  them  para- 
plegia— that  is,  both  legs  paralyzed.  We 
have  one  German  soldier.     The  poor  cuss 


142     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Is  like  most  other  soldiers  of  Von  Kluck's 
army  that  I  have  seen — worked  to  death! 
He  is  as  thin  as  a  rail  and  his  body  is 
covered  with  eczema  and  other  varieties 
of  skin  diseases.  Besides  that,  he  is  shot 
through  the  kidneys  and  spine,  and  has  his 
skull  fractured. 

W.  wants  me  to  take  charge  of  hospital 
stores  entirely  and  to  act  as  purchasing 
agent.  The  stores  are  in  a  mess,  and  need 
someone  to  straighten  them  out  and  keep 
them  in  good  order. 

November  g: 

Helped  at  the  dressings  again  this  morn- 
ing. W.  trephined  the  German  who  had  a 
large  gutter  fracture  of  the  skull.  There 
were  very  few  loose  fragments  and  the 
operation  can  hardly  help  him.  He  will 
surely  die  in  a  day  or  so,  he  is  absolutely 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      143 

"all  in";  both  of  his  legs  are  paralyzed, 
too. 

Moved  all  the  stores  from  the  first  floor 
to  the  second,  where  there  are  three  small 
rooms  better  suited  for  them  than  the 
present  one;  classified  them  and  disposed 
of  the  stuff  that  we  do  not  want. 

Had  a  splendid  meal  this  evening.  One 
of  the  biggest  assets  we  have,  is  our  chef. 
You  can  go  into  the  best  restaurants  in 
London  or  Paris  and  not  get  one  bit  better 
food  than  we  are  getting  in  this  old  dirty 
chateau.  The  chef  is  a  wonder;  he  works 
from  six  in  the  morning  until  eleven  at 
night,  and  seems  to  be  perfectly  O.  K. 

November  10: 

Saw  the  poor  German  before  I  went  to 
bed.  He  had  been  moved  to  a  little  room 
by  himself  and  is  there  alone,  dying,  in  a 


144     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

strange  country  among  strange  people.  He 
was  semi-conscious,  and  as  I  stood  beside 
him  he  looked  up  at  me  in  a  dreamy  way 
and  murmured,  "Ah  meine  arme,  arme 
mutter  I"  He  is  cold  and  has  hardly  any 
pulse,  so  it  is  only  a  question  of  a  few  hours. 

November  ii: 

Slept  badly  and  got  up  at  4  A.  M.  and 
read  "Pan-Germanism"  in  the  kitchen. 

At  6  A.  M.  Cleve,  who  is  night  orderly 
this  week,  came  and  said  that  the  German 
had  just  died,  and  asked  if  I  would  help 
take  him  out  to  the  mortuary. 

I  suppose  I  have  handled  about  forty  or 
fifty  dead  men  since  I  have  been  here,  but 
this  was  the  most  extreme  case  of  rigor 
mortis  I  have  seen.  Cleve  said  that  the 
man  had  only  stopped  breathing  fifteen 
minutes   ago.     He  was   absolutely   as   stiff 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      145 

as  a  poker.  I  put  my  hands  under  the 
back  of  his  neck,  and  Cleve  took  his  feet, 
and  we  lifted  him  from  the  bed  to  the 
stretcher  as  though  he  had  been  a  log  of 
wood.  Cleve  said  that  this  is  usually  due 
to  degeneration  of  tissue  through  fatigue 
and  bad  condition.  We  took  the  poor 
fellow  out  in  the  gray  dawn  to  the  little 
outhouse  which  was  being  used  as  a  mor- 
tuary, and  laid  him  at  his  last  rest  beside 
a  French  soldier. 

To-day  is  the  first  clear  day  we  have  had 
for  a  week.  The  weather  has  been  dis- 
agreeable and  rainy  ever  since  we  have  been 
here. 

November  14: 

About  three  in  the  afternoon  the  Medecin 
Chef  sent  for  all  of  our  cars  again,  and  as 
we  were  short  of  a  chauffeur  I  was  detailed 


146     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

to  car  No.  9.  When  we  got  to  the  station  they 
had  fifty  men  to  take  to  Breteuil — twenty- 
two  kilometers  west  of  us.  We  got  them 
there  in  two  trips,  and  I  hope  I  never  have 
any  more  like  them.  I  almost  froze,  but 
the  patients  told  me  they  were  not  cold. 
They  were  pretty  well  protected  from  the 
weather,  and  the  interior  of  the  ambulances 
kept  warm  by  the  heat  of  their  bodies. 
The  French  sergeant  who  went  out  there 
with  me  was  telling  me  about  the  trenches. 
He  said  that  most  of  the  men  have  been 
in  the  same  positions  for  a  month  now 
and  have  made  them  almost  like  under- 
ground houses;  that  you  can  drop  a  shell 
right  on  them  and  not  hurt  anybody. 
When  they  hear  one  coming  they  all  duck 
inside.  They  have  mattresses  and  beds  in 
some  of  them,  and  it  is  practically  impos- 
sible for  either  side  to  dislodge  the  other. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      147 

I  don't  believe  there  is  going  to  be  much 
doing  until  Spring;  there  have  not  been 
any  wounded  to  speak  of  in  our  Army- 
Corps  since  November  5,  and  the  13  th  Army 
Corps  next  to  us  gets  only  a  few. 

November  ly: 

In  Paris  to  purchase  supplies  and  drive 
out  a  new  car.  Shopped  all  morning,  and 
most  of  the  afternoon,  and  then  stopped 
in  at  the  Majestic  Hotel  Hospital  to  see 
JoU,  who  is  now  in  charge  of  it.  He  took 
me  through  the  wards  and  showed  me  all 
the  old  patients  whom  I  had  left  there  six 
weeks  ago. 

I  don't  know  when  I  have  felt  so  strongly 
as  at  seeing  these  men  again.  It  was  mar- 
vellous! Most  of  them  were  almost  well, 
and  all  of  them  were  far  on  the  road  to 
recovery.     The  boy  with   the  side  of  his 


148     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

face  half  gone,  I  did  not  know,  when  he 
spoke  to  me.  The  swelling  had  entirely 
disappeared,  and  he  spoke  as  clearly  as 
I  do.  JoU  said  the  wound  had  nearly 
closed.  Harry  Bell  looked  like  a  different 
man.  His  leg  was  in  a  patent  adjustable 
splint  that  JoU  had  recently  invented,  and 
was  nearly  well.  JoU  showed  it  to  me  in 
detail — an  unusual  but  evidently  effective 
device.  Two  spikes  or  nails  were  driven 
through  the  leg;  one  through  the  bone  of 
the  femur  and  the  other  through  the  joint 
of  the  knee,  on  each  side  of  the  fracture. 
Either  a  longitudinal  or  rotary  movement 
could  be  accomplished  by  turnbuckles. 
There  was  no  shortening  of  the  leg  at  all 
now,  whereas,  when  I  left,  the  leg  was  be- 
tween two  and  two  and  a  half  inches  shorter 
than  the  other.  It  is  wonderful! 
Two   head    cases   were   up   and   walking 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      149 

about  the  wards,  and  another  man  was 
pushing  a  chair.  He  spoke  to  me  and  I 
did  not  know  him.  It  was  the  French 
soldier  with  the  broken  shoulder  and  the 
two  bayonet  wounds  in  the  stomach  that 
were  discharging  fecal  matter, — now  en- 
tirely well.  Tears  came  into  my  eyes  as  I 
shook  his  hand,  I  hadn't  expected  ever  to 
see  him  alive  again.  The  little  English  boy 
with  the  perforating  wound  of  the  left 
thorax  had  put  on  ten  pounds  and  waved 
at  me  from  across  the  room,  as  if  he  had 
never  known  what  it  was  to  be  sick.  Every 
other  bed  had  a  new  face  on  it,  and  the 
men  who  had  been  there  when  I  left,  had 
got  well  and  had  been  sent  home. 

The  last  man  I  saw  was  the  English 
Captain  Seabrooke  with  the  terrible  leg, 
that  I  helped  dress  every  day  for  two  weeks. 
JoU  said  I  would  be  surprised  when  I  saw 


ISO    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

him;  but  I  was  hardly  prepared  for  the 
rosy-cheeked,  splendid  looking  fellow  in  the 
bed  I  had  bent  over  so  many  times.  He 
too  had  put  on  at  least  ten  pounds.  A 
lump  came  in  my  throat  and  I  could  hardly 
speak  to  him.  The  wound  that  they  used 
to  take  a  basin  full  of  stuffing  out  of,  is 
now  only  two  inches  long  on  each  side. 
His  wife  was  there,  and  she  is  going  to  take 
him  back  to  England  in  a  couple  of  weeks 
to  walk  again,  within  six  months. 

It  was  a  very  impressive  hour.  There  in 
front  of  the  eyes  of  those  men  and  women 
were  the  tangible  results  of  the  work  that 
they  had  been  faithfully  doing,  day  and 
night  for  two  months  past;  the  realization 
of  their  training  and  toil.  Suffering  alle- 
viated, hearts  gladdened,  and  limbs  and 
lives  saved.  Can  there  be  greater  satisfac- 
tion in  any  vocation? 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      151 

November  21: 

They  have  at  last  got  a  plumber  from 
Montdidier  to  drain  the  cesspool  at  the 
east  end  of  the  house.  It  had  overflowed 
into  the  cellar  where  it  is  four  inches  deep, 
under  Ward  No.  i.  I  discovered  this  on 
November  14th,  a  week  ago,  and  called 
attention  to  it  then,  but  nothing  has 
been  done  until  to-day.  Our  drinking  water 
comes  from  a  twelve-foot  well  in  the  cellar 
fifty  feet  from  this  cesspool.  There  is  also 
another  cesspool  fifty  feet  from  it,  on  the 
north  side  of  the  house,  and  a  waste  drain- 
age well  in  the  yard,  fifty  feet  to  the  south. 
The  soil  is  sandy  and  porous.  Our  drinking 
supply  is,  therefore,  in  the  center  of  three 
waste  wells  at  short  distances  from  them; 
one  of  which  is  now  overflowing.  I  con- 
sider this  situation  dangerous.  Everything 
about  this  old  place  is  filthy,  and  there  is 


152    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

no  telling  what  the  Germans  did  when  they 
were  here. 

November  22: 

Out  of  kerosene,  coal  and  gasolene  all 
at  the  same  time.  G.  drains  a  couple  of 
the  other  cars  and  is  despatched  to  Com- 
piegne  to  replenish  our  supply. 

We  run  short  simply  because  W.  will  not 
appoint  anyone  housekeeper,  and  therefore 
no  one  looks  after  these  things.  It  is  very 
annoying  and  unnecessary. 

November  24: 

We    ran    out    of    coal    again    last    night. 

G.   had  only  bought  five  hundred   pounds 

two  days  ago,  and  at  nine  o'clock  at  night, 

it  was  discovered  that  there  wasn't  another 

bit  in  the  house!     Steve  and  G.   searched 

everywhere,   but   half   a   scuttleful   was    all 

they  could  get.    It  looked  as  if  we  shouldn't 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      153 

get  any  breakfast  in  the  morning,  and  there 
wouldn't  be  any  fire  in  the  furnace  for  the 
patients  after  midnight. 

The  chef,  wise  man,  had,  however,  fore- 
seen just  such  an  emergency,  and  had 
hidden  away  enough  coal  for  just  one  meal 
— about  two  scuttlesful.  This  he  produced 
at  the  psychological  moment,  and  the  pa- 
tients and  ourselves  got  a  hot  breakfast, 
although  the  furnace  fire  did  go  out.  For- 
tunately, the  cold  snap  has  abated  some- 
what, and  the  wards,  although  chilly,  were 
not  cold  enough  to  be  dangerous. 

November  26: 

Thanksgiving  Day  and  busy  all  the  day 
long  with  all  sorts  of  odd  jobs  about  the 
house.  We  are  to  have  a  big  Thanksgiving 
dinner  to-night,  and  M.  and  I  made  a  big 
pitcher   of   apple   toddy   for   the   occasion. 


154    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Nearly  everyone  congregated  in  the  medical 
supplies  room  in  front  of  the  fire,  and  the 
pitcher  kept  going  the  rounds  for  almost 
an  hour  before  supper.  At  half  past  six 
we  all  went  together  to  the  kitchen  for 
our  Thanksgiving  dinner  which  was  mag- 
nificent. The  chef  outdid  himself.  B.  had 
brought  out  two  turkeys,  which  were 
specially  selected  for  us  by  the  head  waiter 
at  Maxim's.  Toasts  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Harjes 
and  the  chef  were  drunk,  and  the  feast 
went  off  with  great  eclat. 

December  §-8: 

Nothing  of  particular  interest  has  hap- 
pened. Have  seen  Dill  Starr  of  Phila- 
delphia who  tells  me  he  is  going  to  join 
the  British  Army  and  will  leave  for  London 
in  a  week.  He  is  to  be  with  one  of  the 
armored  motors. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      155 

Last  night  there  was  a  bit  of  domestic 
excitement.  The  chef  got  so  drunk  that 
he  was  hardly  able  to  cook  supper.  I 
don't  blame  him  a  bit!  The  man  has  been 
under  quite  a  strain  for  the  past  two  months. 
He  has  been  working  sixteen  hours  a  day, 
under  very  irritating  circumstances  and  is 
nervous  and  upset. 

What  ought  to  be  done  is  to  let  the  chef 
go  to  Paris  for  a  week  and  have  a  good 
spree  and  change  of  scene.  He  has  been 
on  the  job  steadily  since  the  beginning  of 
October,  doing  work  that  is  enough  to 
drive  anyone  to  drink. 

We  don't  want  to  fire  him,  and  there  is 
no  necessity  for  it.  If  we  keep  him  on,  it 
will  just  mean  repetitions  of  this  sort  of  thing, 
until  he  gets  it  out  of  his  system.  I  say  let 
him  go  to  Paris  and  get  so  soused  that  he 
won't  want  to  do  it  again  for  six  months. 


iS6    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

December  ly: 

I  was  talking  to  Offert  last  night,  and 
he  told  me  about  how  he  got  wounded. 
It  was  in  the  big  advance  on  Andichy,  in 
the  early  part  of  November.  The  story 
is  characteristic  of  the  infantry  advance 
against  entrenched  positions  in  modern 
warfare.  He  said  the  men  were  ordered 
from  their  trenches  about  ten  in  the  morn- 
ing, in  broad  daylight,  and  told  to  ad- 
vance. They  got  up  and  went  toward  the 
German  position  in  extended  order,  with 
the  usual  interval  of  about  five  or  ten  feet, 
advancing  by  rushes.  He  said  that  they 
never  saw  a  German;  they  never  saw  any 
smoke;  they  just  walked  into  one  continual 
hail  of  bullets  and  shrapnel.  Most  of  the 
men  did  not  even  fire  their  guns  off.  There 
was  nothing  to  shoot  at.  They  kept  on 
for  some  six  hundred  yards,  and  when  they 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CX)RPS      157 

had  lost  two  thousand  men,  gave  it  up  and 
came    back. 

First  got  hit  in  the  ankle.  "That's 
enough  for  me,"  he  said  to  himself,  and 
seeing  a  dead  horse  fifteen  yards  away, 
thought,  "If  I  can  get  behind  that  horse, 
I  will  be  safe."  lie  tried  to  crawl  there, 
but  before  he  could,  another  bullet  went 
through  his  spine.  Of  course  he  hasn't  any 
chance.  Complete  paralysis  below  the 
waist,  and  he  will  die  within  a  few  months.* 
A  wounded  German  was  brought  into 
Montdidier  to-day,  who  had  some  dum-dum 
bullets  in  his  pockets.  He  had  split  the 
points  of  each  bullet  halfway  down,  so  that 
it  would  fly  into  pieces  when  it  struck 
anything.  They  stood  him  up  against  the 
wall  in  short  order. 

*He  died  about  January  isth. 


158     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

December  i8: 

Mr.  Benjamin  R.  Allison  is  the  author 
of  a  stirring  piece  of  poetry,  which  he  com- 
posed on  night  duty  last  ni^ht.  It  is  en- 
titled Just  Call  an  Aide,  and  is  as  follows: 


If  there's  anything 
Beneath  the  sun 
Thou  would'st  have  done, 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

If  in  the  mom  for  any  cause 
Thou  would'st  arise 
E'er  darkness  flies, 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

Or  in  the  morn  if  water  warm 
Thou'st  none  to  shave, 
Don't  be  dismayed. 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

Then  when  the  patients  all  are  fed, 
Their  faces  washed,  and  made  their  bed, 
The  floors  all  scrubbed,  and  backs  all  rubbed. 
The  dressings  made,  the  lunch-times  come, 
And  still  there's  something  left  undone, 
Just  call  an  Aide. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      159 

Now,  if  a  patient  has  colique 
And  wants  le  Basin  tres  tres  vite, 
What  should  he  do? 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

Or  if  the  furnace  fire  is  low 
And  house  gets  cold, 
To  make  it  go 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

When  Docs  all  sicken  of  their  stunt 
Of  exercising  at  the  pump, 
And  tank  goes  dry;  what  should  they  do? 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

Or  if  there're  bandages  to  bum, 

And  the  chauffeurs  can't  decide  whose  turn 

It  is  to  do  the  job, 

Just  call  an  Aide. 

And  if  the  nurses  want  some  wood, 
And  cannot  find  their  Mr.  Goode, 
What  must  they  do? 
Just  call  an  Aide. 

Or  if  the  chef  should  cook  some  meat 
Not  fit  for  Soixante  Quinze  to  eat. 
What?    Waste  it!    No! 
Just  call  an  Aide. 


i6o    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

Or  when  it's  time  to  go  to  bed, 

And  still  a  job  there's  left  to  do, 

Don't  think  that  it  is  up  to  you — 

Instead 

Just  call  an  Aide. 

Mr.  Benjamin  R.  Allison  also  was  this 
afternoon  arrested  as  a  German  spy!  Why? 
Oh,  it  was  quite  evident!  He  had  his  hair 
brushed  like  a  German!  Allison  can't  speak 
French  and  was  marched  down  the  streets  of 
Montdidier  between  two  soldiers,  followed 
by  a  crowd  of  a  hundred  people. 

The  fear  of  German  spies  has  now  reached 
such  proportions,  that  the  whole  French  na- 
tion is  hysterical  on  the  subject.  Everyone 
is  suspected  of  being  a  German  spy!  It 
would  be  as  much  as  a  man's  life  was  worth 
now,  to  go  into  a  restaurant  and  order  beer 
and  weiner  schnitzel.  He  would  probably 
be  stood  up  in  front  of  a  firing  squad, 
before  he  even  had  time  to  explain  himself. 


A  lesson  in  knitting — and  incidentally  in  French  too.     Most 
of  these  Algerians  can  talk  only  Arabic. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      i6i 

December  2^-26: 

Nothing  doing  until  Christmas  Eve,  when 
we  had  a  very  pleasant  party.  We  had 
some  apple  toddy  for  everyone  before 
supper  and  then  w^  all  visited  the  wards, 
which  the  nurses  had  decorated  very  nicely, 
and  the  quartette,  consisting  of  Cleveland, 
Allison,  Pyle  and  myself  rendered  a  few 
Christmas  carols,  including  "Old  Black 
Joe"  and  "The  Marseillaise."  The  pa- 
tients enjoyed  it  hugely — all  of  them 
coming  in  strong  on  the  last  mentioned. 
There  was  only  one  really  sick  man  in  the 
chateau,  and  he  was  by  himself.  The  others 
are  all  more  or  less  convalescent,  and  are 
a  pretty  jovial  lot.  After  a  fine  dinner 
served  at  seven,  instead  of  six,  we  went 
up  to  the  sitting  room  where  W.  unveiled 
a  little  Christmas  tree,  that  Mr.  and 
Mrs.     Harjes    had     sent     us,    which     had 


i62     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

very  nice   presents   for   everyone  hung  on 
it. 

Christmas  Day  was  not  very  different 
from  other  days,  excepting  for  a  fine  mid- 
day dinner.  In  the  afternoon  Miss  L., 
Miss  MacC.  and  I  took  the  little  car  out 
to  distribute  small  packages  of  candy  to 
the  children  in  the  neighborhood,  but  we 
had  no  sooner  started,  when  an  order  came 
to  get  out  three  ambulances  for  Breteuil. 
We  took  twenty-one  "malades"  over  there, 
and  had  supper  in  a  small  cafe,  with  a  genial 
party  of  French  soldiers  and  gendarmes;  lib- 
eral hot  grog  (which  we  certainly  needed) 
and  good  song.    A  very  pleasant  evening. 

February  7; 

I  arranged  yesterday  to  go  out  to  spend 
a  day  in  the  lines  near  X,  and  left  bright 
and  early  in  the  little  car. 


Lieutenant  Bufquin,  his  wife,  and  Miss  MacCullagh,  on 
Christmas  Day,  1914.  He  had  been  lingering  between  Hfe 
and  death  for  six  weeks.  Kidney  perforated  and  spinal 
column  grazed.     Recovered  and  discharged. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS       163 

At  Gerblgny  I  met  Captain  Gain  who 
was  at  our  hospital.  He  commands  the 
15s  m.m.  battery  in  front  of  the  town,  and 
he  took  me  all  over  the  French  positions. 
Gerbigny  is  not  in  the  best  of  repair,  as 
every  few  days  a  big  German  shell  arrives 
there,  but  no  one  seems  to  care  much.  I 
was  most  agreeably  surprised  to  find  how 
well  organized  and  equipped  the  French 
artillery  and  infantry  are  in  that  neighbor- 
hood. The  artillery  is  all  marvellously 
hidden — you  can  go  within  50  meters  of  a 
battery  of  four  pieces  without  seeing  them. 
I  do  not  believe  the  Germans  have  an 
idea  where  the  majority  of  them  are.  Some 
of  the  guns  have  been  in  the  same  position 
for  three  months.  The  French,  on  the  other 
hand,  seem  to  have  the  German  positions 
located.  They  have  splendid  maps  which 
the  aeroplanes  make  of  their  trenches  and 


i64    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

batteries.  The  Germans  are  not  in  a  very 
good  position,  being  all  on  a  more  or  less 
level  plain,  whereas  the  French  are  splen- 
didly placed.  First  we  went  to  a  battery 
of  four  155  m.m.  cannon  which  were  behind 
a  steep  hill  with  a  marsh  in  their  rear.  It 
would  be  almost  impossible  to  put  a  shell 
on  them  unless  it  came  down  vertically. 
They  either  hit  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  or 
go  over  it  into  the  marsh  where  they 
usually  fail  to  explode.  The  guns  are 
beautifully  hidden  by  curtains  of  brush- 
wood, trees,  etc.  They  are  pointed  very 
high  in  the  air,  an  angle  of  40°  giving  them 
their  maximum  range.  They  are  sighted 
by  knowing  the  angle  made  by  a  fixed  point 
on  their  flank,  their  own  position  and  the 
enemy's  battery;  they  sight  on  the  fixed 
point  and  adjust  the  guns  accordingly. 
From  each  gun  runs  quite  an  elaborate  little 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS       165 

telephone  system;  it  connects  with  every- 
thing, even  wireless  on  the  aeroplanes. 
This  particular  battery  had  seven  "postes 
d'observation"  to  the  front,  which  tele- 
phone them  how  their  shells  are  going  and 
correct  their  fire.  We  then  went  to  a  bat- 
tery of  "120  m.m.  long"  cannon.  They 
were  in  a  wooded  swamp  and  wonderfully 
hidden.  You  could  stand  within  fifty  yards 
of  them,  and  not  know  there  was  anything 
there.  This  particular  battery  has  been  in 
position  since  November  without  the  Ger- 
mans ever  finding  it.  The  quarters  of  the 
men  were  excellent,  and  they  are  very 
comfortable,  well-made  dug-outs  and 
thatched  shacks,  and  the  insides  perfectly 
dry.  I  was  much  impressed  by  the  spirits 
of  the  men  and  their  good  condition;  also 
their  discipline;  a  sharp  contrast  to  the 
slouchy  reservists  and  stupid  medical  men 


1 66     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

at  the  rear.  I  took  a  good  many  photo- 
graphs, and  we  spent  some  time  talking  to 
the  soldiers. 

Went  back  to  lunch  at  Gerbigny  with 
Captain  Gain  and  his  two  lieutenants — all 
of  them  intelligent  and  agreeable.  They 
told  me  some  amusing  stories  of  life  in  the 
trenches. 

At  points  where  the  trenches  are  very 
close  together,  they  shoot  messages  over 
to  each  other  with  bows  and  arrows,  and 
when  there  was  snow  they  threw  snowballs 
at  each  other;  said  that  in  one  small  village 
there  were  trenches  on  each  side  of  the 
main  street  occupied  by  the  French  and 
Germans,  and  that  chickens  used  to  come 
and  feed  between  them,  and  that  both  sides 
would  throw  out  grain  to  them,  to  try  to 
make  them  come  near  enough  to  be  caught. 

At  one  place  they  said  that  a  calf  came 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS       167 

walking  along  between  the  two  lines.  He 
was  promptly  transformed  into  a  sieve. 
A  German  then  jumped  out  of  his  trench 
waving  a  white  handkerchief  and  ran  for 
it,  at  which  a  Frenchman  did  the  same 
thing.  They  both  had  a  good-natured 
tussle  for  it  and  a  boxing  match,  and  finally 
ended  up  by  cutting  it  in  halves,  and  each 
taking  a  piece  back  to  his  comrades. 

Lieutenant  Kula  told  me  that  in  Belgium, 
they  put  their  battery  in  a  certain  position 
and  almost  immediately  the  Germans  located 
it  and  a  dozen  shells  came  right  on  top  of 
them.  They  quickly  moved  to  another 
place.  The  next  morning  bright  and  early, 
a  dozen  more  shells  landed  within  one 
hundred  yards  of  them. 

"Ah,  mais  c'etait  tout  a  fait  degoutant," 
said  Kula.    They  had  to  move  again. 

The    next    morning    there    was    another 


i68     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

volley  of  shells  right  on  the  range!  One 
of  the  men  noticed  a  dead  German  lying 
on  the  field  some  distance  from  them  and 
thought  he  saw  him  move.  They  investi- 
gated him.  He  was  not  dead  nor  wounded, 
and  underneath  him  was  a  telephone! 
There  he  had  been  lying  for  three  days 
correcting  the  fire  of  his  friends. 

After  lunch  we  again  walked  out  along  the 
river  bottom  toward  Andichy,  where  the  Ger- 
mans are,  and  inspected  a  new  one  hundred 
and  fifty-five  piece  that  had  just  been  placed 
there  to  fire  on  a  supply  station  that  the  Ger- 
mans had  recently  been  working  from.  We 
then  went  up  to  a  battery  of  four  "  soixante- 
quinze"  guns,  which  were  within  two 
thousand  yards  of  Andichy,  or,  rather, 
what  is  left  of  Andichy — for  there  is  hardly 
a  house  standing. 

Throughout  most  of  the  afternoon  there 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CX)RPS       169 

was  a  general  exchange  of  artillery  fire,  and 
while  we  were  there  the  Germans  fired  upon 
us;  we  replied,  and  I  found  myself  in  the 
middle  of  a  real  battle.  Our  battery  was 
wonderfully  hidden  in  a  little  ravine  and 
had  only  been  in  position  four  days.  It 
was  just  on  the  crest  of  a  rise  and  hard  to 
get  at.  The  German  battery  we  were  at- 
tending to  was  in  a  small  apple  orchard 
just  on  the  edge  of  Andichy.  We  could 
see  their  position  easily.  It  was  direct 
fire.  There  was  no  question  about  the  su- 
periority of  the  marksmanship,  and  the 
greater  effectiveness  of  the  shells  of  the 
French  battery.  They  poured  shells  into 
those  Germans  so  fast,  that  they  did  not 
know  whether  they  were  going  or  coming; 
they  can  shoot  twenty-six  a  minute  with 
these  guns  and  there  were  four  of  them. 
Four  times  twenty-six  is  one  hundred  and 


170    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

four,  so  it  can  be  imagined  what  it  was 
like.  They  say  it  is  the  best  light  field 
piece  in  the  world.  The  recoil  of  these 
seventy-five  millimeter  guns  is  so  perfectly 
absorbed  by  a  special  hydro-pneumatic 
cylinder,  that  it  never  has  to  be  repointed 
after  the  first  shot.  They  can  stand  a  full 
glass  of  water  on  the  wheel  when  they  are 
firing,  and  not  spill  a  drop. 

The  German  seventy-seven  millimeter  guns 
on  the  other  hand  jump  slightly  at  each  shot 
and  have  to  be  repointed.  They  can  only 
fire  six  to  seven  shots  a  minute.  We  would 
fire  steadily  for  ten  seconds  or  so,  and  then 
stop  and  see  what  had  happened.  The 
Germans,  I  don't  believe  had  more  than 
two  guns,  and  did  not  seem  to  be  good 
shots.  At  any  rate  our  volleys  of  shells 
made  their  fire  very  wild;  some  of  their  shots 
missed  us  by  three  hundred  yards,  and  the 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      171 

closest  they  ever  got  was  about  one  hundred 
yards.  Their  shells  all  exploded  upon  im- 
pact, and  were  not  much  good  anyway. 
They  were  loaded  only  with  ordinary  powder 
and  were  not  powerful.  When  they  exploded 
they  just  sent  up  a  little  cloud  of  blue 
smoke,  like  an  ordinary  rock  blasting 
charge,  whereas  the  French  shells,  loaded 
with  melinite,  sent  a  column  of  black  smoke 
fifty  feet  into  the  air,  and  tore  up  every- 
thing around  them.  Our  first  shot  sent  a 
tree  down  over  one  of  the  German  pieces. 
At  the  end  of  three-quarters  of  an  hour  the 
German  fire  was  silenced.  I  don't  know 
what  we  accomplished.  All  I  do  know  is 
that  I  should  have  hated  to  be  in  that 
orchard,  where  they  were.  The  Germans 
are  now  using  aluminum  to  make  the  screw 
heads  for  their  shells.  They  are  short  of 
copper  over  there  and  have  been   requisi- 


172     THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

tioning  it  everywhere.  I  picked  up  some 
pieces,  and  the  officers  told  me  about  it. 

Afterwards  we  sneaked  up  along  the  side 
of  a  hill  and  got  up  on  a  ridge  to  the  right 
where  we  were  about  one  thousand  and  two 
hundred  yards  from  the  German  trenches; 
one  could  see  wonderfully  from  that  point, 
— the  trenches  of  both  sides  right  in  front  of 
us  with  both  batteries  firing  and  the  shells 
bursting.  There  are  about  six  hundred 
yards  between  the  French  and  German 
trenches  here.  The  German  infantry,  how- 
ever, saw  us  and  kept  shooting  at  us,  so 
we  had  to  get  out  after  a  few  minutes. 

The  men's  quarters  and  commissary  are 
wonderful;  regular  underground  palaces, 
with  sculpture  of  "Guillaume  le  Cochon" 
and  Queens  from  Montmartre  done  in  mud, 
that  ought  to  go  in  the  Louvre  after  the 
war  is  over. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      173 

I  was  much  impressed  again  by  the  good 
spirits  of  the  men  and  their  condition  and 
healthy  look.  "Oui,  ils  sont  tres  gais  dans 
les  tranchees,"  said  the  captain;  and  they 
are! 

The  officers'  quarters,  general  mess,  ravi- 
taillement,  etc.,  are  just  around  the  corner 
of  the  hill  where  the  "soixante-quinze"  bat- 
tery was;  they  again  are  almost  impossible 
to  hit,  unless  a  shell  is  dropped  vertically  on 
them.  The  shells  either  land  on  the  crest  of 
the  hill  or  else  just  miss,  and  go  two  hundred 
yards  into  the  valley  below.  They  have 
been  there  for  three  months  and  the  place  is 
like  an  Adirondack  summer  resort.  They  live 
in  luxury.  Brick  walks,  flowers,  terraces, 
rustic  benches,  etc.  The  Commandant  has 
a  little  Italian  pergola  which  he  has  built 
out  of  odds  and  ends  of  stuff,  a  telephone, 
an  iron  bedstead,  and,  in  fact,  everything 


174    THE  AFTERMATH  OF  BATTLE 

that  goes  to  make  life  comfortable,  and 
right  over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  fifty  yards 
from  his  house,  are  big  holes  from  the  shells 
in  every  direction. 

I  talked  to  the  Commandant  and  some 
of  his  officers  and  they  again  were  intelli- 
gent and  very  agreeable. 

During  the  afternoon  I  saw  a  couple  of  men 
working  in  the  field  when  a  shell  dropped 
fifty  yards  from  them.  They  just  looked  up 
at  it  and  then  continued  with  their  work. 

I  stayed  out  there  until  it  was  dark,  and 
then  went  back  and  took  my  automobile 
for  Montdidier.  It  was  a  most  interesting 
day,  and  the  captain  said  that  I  was  very 
lucky  to  see  so  much  firing.  All  the  way 
between  X  and  Y  there  are  secondary 
trenches  all  ready  for  the  artillery,  bomb 
proof,  etc.  The  impression  that  I  carried 
away  with  me  was  good. 


HARJES  AMBULANCE  CORPS      175 

I  was  also  surprised  and  pleased  to  find 
that  the  Germans  were  not  so  terrible  as 
I  had  thought. 

The  defence  of  modern  warfare  is  so 
much  stronger  than  the  offence  that  it  is 
simply  suicide  to  advance,  but  generally- 
speaking  the  French  seem  to  be  the  stronger, 
here  at  X.  I  should  say  they  could  hold 
the  Germans  indefinitely. 

Modern  warfare  is  a  good  deal  more  a 
question  of  ammunition  and  equipment, 
than  of  men.  A  couple  of  machine  guns 
in  a  trench  are  as  good  as  a  regiment. 
How  long  it  will  last,  is  not  for  me  to  say; 
it  seems  to  be  an  absolute  standoff  all  along 
the  western  front. 

Some  social,  or  economic  development, 
I  believe  will  be  more  likely  to  end  it,  than 
actual  fighting. 

Pxinted  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


npHE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of 
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The  Pentecost  of  Calamity 

By  OWEN  WISTER 
Author  of  "The  Virginian,"  etc. 

Boards,  i6mo,  so  cents 

The  author  of  "The  Virginian"  has  written  a  new  book 
which  describes,  more  forcibly  and  clearly  than  any  other 
account  so  far  published,  the  meaning,  to  America,  of  the 
tragic  changes  which  are  taking  place  in  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  the  German  people. 

Written  with  ease  and  charm  of  style,  it  is  prose  that  holds 
the  reader  for  its  very  beauty,  even  as  it  impresses  him  with 
its  force.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  will  come  out  of  the 
entire  mass  of  war  literature  a  more  understanding  or  sug- 
gestive survey. 

"Owen  Wister  has  depicted  the  tragedy  of  Germany  and 
has  hinted  at  the  possible  tragedy  of  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
We  wish  it  could  be  read  in  full  by  every  American." — The 
Outlook. 

Russia  and  the  World 

By  STEPHEN  GRAHAM 

Author  of  "With  the  Russian  Pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,"  "With 

Poor  Immigrants  to  America,"  etc. 

Illustrated,  cloth,  8vo,  $2.00 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  present  European  war  Mr.  Graham 
was  in  Russia,  and  his  book  opens,  therefore,  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  way  the  news  of  war  was  received  on  the  Chinese 
frontier,  one  thousand  miles  from  a  railway  station,  where  he 
happened  to  be  when  the  Tsar's  summons  came.  Following 
this  come  other  chapters  on  Russia  and  the  War,  considering 
such  questions  as.  Is  It  a  Last  War?,  Why  Russia  Is  Fighting, 
The  Economic  Isolation  of  Russia,  An  Aeroplane  Hunt  at 
Warsaw,  Suffering  Poland:  A  Belgium  of  the  East,  and  The 
Soldier  and  the  Cross. 

"It  shows  the  author  creeping  as  near  as  he  was  allowed  to 
the  firing  line." — London  Times. 


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A    Journal    of    Impressions    in 
Belgium 

By  may  SINCLAIR 

Author  of  "The  Three  Sisters,"  "The  Return  of  the  Prodigal," 

etc. 

Clothf  i2mo,  $1.50 

Here  is  recorded  the  story  of  the  effect  of  the  war 
on  the  celebrated  English  novelist.  Miss  Sinclair 
went  to  the  front  with  a  field  ambulance  corps  and 
in  this  journal  she  tells  what  her  impressions  were 
of  the  things  she  saw  and  experienced.  It  is  not 
so  much  a  war  book  as  it  is  a  May  Sinclair  book,  the 
revelation  of  the  mental  condition  which  the  ter- 
rible conflict  produced  upon  one  of  the  great  literary 
minds  of  the  day. 

The  journal  covers  the  most  tragic  period  of  the 
invasion,  the  seventeen  days  between  Septem- 
ber 25th  and  October  13,  1914.  Miss  Sinclair  in 
her  introduction  says,  "Each  day  of  the  seventeen 
had  its  own  quality  and  was  soaked  in  its  own  at- 
mosphere; each  had  its  own  unique  and  incor- 
ruptible memory.  ...  I  have  set  down  the  day's 
crude  emotion  in  all  its  crudity,  rather  than  taint 
its  reality  with  the  discreet  reflections  that  came 
after." 


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With  the  Russian  Army 

By  ROBERT  R.  McCORMICK 

Illustrated,  i2mo,  $2.00 

This  book  deals  with  the  author's  experiences  in 
the  war  area.  The  work  traces  the  cause  of  the 
war  from  the  treaty  of  1878  through  the  Balkan 
situation.  It  contains  many  facts  drawn  from  per- 
sonal observation,  for  Major  McCormick  has  had 
opportunities  such  as  have  been  given  to  no  other 
man  during  the  present  engagements.  He  has  been 
at  the  various  headquarters  and  actually  in  the 
trenches.  One  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  of 
the  volume  is  the  concluding  one  dealing  with  great 
personalities  of  the  war  from  first-hand  acquaintance. 

The  work  contains  a  considerable  amount  of 
material  calculated  to  upset  generally  accepted 
ideas,  comparisons  of  the  fighting  forces,  and  much 
else  that  is  fresh  and  original. 


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The  Military  Unpreparedness  of 
the  United  States 

By  FREDERIC  L.  HUIDEKOPER 

Maps,  8vo,  $4.00 
Preparedness  is  one  of  the  vital  issues  of  the  day. 
It  will  be  a  vital  issue  in  years  to  come.  No  unin- 
formed person  has  a  right  to  hold  opinions,  whether 
antagonistic  or  confident,  as  to  the  policies  of  his 
government.  Frederic  Louis  Huidekoper  of  Wash- 
ington, who  is  perhaps  the  foremost  authority  on 
military  topics  in  the  United  States,  has  written  a 
book,  **The  Military  Unpreparedness  of  the  United 
States,"  which  is  an  authoritative  commentary  on 
the  history  of  the  United  States  Army  from  Colonial 
times  to  the  present,  with  expert  analysis  of  the 
tactical  significance  of  the  handling  of  the  forces 
in  the  field  and  of  the  military  policy  of  the  govern- 
ment. Historians  of  former  wars  have  placed  em- 
phasis on  the  glories  of  our  victories;  there  have 
been  but  few  courageous  truth-seekers  to  draw 
lessons  from  our  defeats.  Mr.  Huidekoper  has  been 
studying  our  military  blunders  with  a  view  to  the 
measures  which  are  necessary  to  prevent  them  in 
the  future. 

"  The  author  has  performed  potentially  one  of  the 
greatest  services  to  the  nation  that  lie  within  mortal  power. 
His  knowledge  of  the  subject  is  encyclopedic.  His  logic  is 
impregnable  and  irresistible.  His  facts  are  beyond  con- 
troversy. We  could  wish  that  every  American  citizen  who 
is  intellectually  capable  of  thought  and  reason  and  who 
Is  morally  capable  of  patriotism  might  carefully  read  and 
ponder  every  word  of  this  book." — New  York  Tribune. 


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